


To Befriend The Wolf

by Gazyrlezon



Series: The Bloody Wolf [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Butterfly Effect, Canon - Book, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-07-22 04:49:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 28,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7420570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gazyrlezon/pseuds/Gazyrlezon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>He is probably thinking he shouldn’t let m’lady go stealing food</em>. Arya just knew he was going to be stupid now.<br/>With a sigh, she turned back towards him.</p>
<p>  <em>Why is it always me who has to stop him from getting killed?</em></p>
<hr/>
<p>Arya prevents Gendry from being captured by the Mountain, and they continue their journey towards Riverrun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Arya

**Author's Note:**

> Exclusivly book canon, as the show decends more and more into a hole of illogical, not-self-consistent madness.
> 
> Also, yet another take on the Arya/Gendry-travel-through-the-Riverlands-Story. This one will be different, I promise.
> 
> Obviously, nothing here belongs to me. It's GRRM's work, I'm just having a bit of fun imagining stuff with things he created.

_ He is probably thinking he shouldn’t let m’lady go stealing food_. Arya just knew he was going to be stupid now. She wondered why, he would only get himself captured or killed or worse. Tortured maybe. The Queen already wanted him dead, he was lucky to even still be alive. _Maybe he’s just too stubborn to die. Stupid bullheaded_ _bastard boy, that’s what he is_ , she’d told herself that countless times since they’d left King’s Landing. 

Yet somehow, she found herself doubting that now. _He figured out that I’m a girl. How_ _stupid can he possibly be?_ Still, she knew it didn’t matter. When Gendry had that look on his face it meant he was thinking. And Gendry just was _not_ very good at thinking. She sighed, then turned back towards him. 

_Why is it always me who has to stop him from getting killed?_

“You’re about to do something stupid, aren’t you?” He seemed startled by her voice, not expecting it. And there was this pained look at his face _again_. Arya wondered how much he could possibly think about her. _Quite a bit, obviously._

“I just thought you shouldn’t - ”, he started, but she cut him of. 

“Just shut up.” 

“But you - ” 

“I’m a lady and ladies shouldn’t go stealing food, is that what you think?” 

“I - ” 

“Is it?” 

“I – er – yes.” 

She had already known it, of course. It was always that way. No matter how she looked or what she did, they always took her as a lady. How could they all be that stupid and blind? _Even Mikken and Harwin and Jory had always treated me as if I was a lady, even_ _when they called me Arya Underfoot, and they all knew how I hated it. Except_ _Jon. And Syrio_. She remembered what Syrio had told her, the trick about looking and seeing what was really there. _Can’t they look at me and know that I’m no_ _lady?_

Well, none of them had ever been taught by him, it seemed. 

“Look at me! Someone once told me you should look with my eyes. So when you look at me, what do you see?” 

He looked pained. 

_Maybe he just noticed how ridiculous he is._

After a short hesitation, Gendry said, sounding doubtful of his own words: 

“I see a highborn lady in dirty boy’s clothes on the road, fleeing from the queen?” 

“What makes you think I’m highborn and a lady, and not just some bastard orphan girl raised in some whorehouse?” 

“You just told me. And you’re much too rude to be raised by whores.” 

“I told you to look with your eyes, not with that thick bull’s head of yours, stupid. And since when exactly are ladies supposed to be rude?” 

He sighed, and she knew she had won. Even someone as bullheaded like him just _had_ to see how she looked no different than any other orphan girl smart enough to disguise herself as a boy as to not to get raped. 

“But it doesn’t matter how you look, you’re still highborn, m’lady” 

_Stupid bastard. Can’t he be less stubborn?_

It took her a moment to come up with something different to just make him _see_. 

“Maybe you’re right. I’m no bastard like you. I could never be as blind and stupid as you” 

“I - ” 

“Oh, just shut up. If we talk any longer, we’ll never see who’s living in that village. But we’ll go together now. You’re too stupid to go alone.” 

At least he did not argue any further. 

As they got closer to the village, the awful smell grew stronger. Not like the smell of the rotten fish lying near the lake they’d noticed before. It was something ranker, fouler. She rankled her nose, and when she looked beside her, she saw Gendry doing the same. 

Soon the woods began to clear out, and they started to use the undergrowth, slipping from bush to bush. She did it as Syrio had taught her, as quiet as a shadow, but with Gendry it was a different matter. It was as if every time he moved, he stepped on fallen branches or leaves or whatever else one could find on the ground that made an awful amount of noise. 

“Can’t you be quiet?”, she hissed to him after some time, and even though he softened his steps a bit, Arya still feared every time that someone would hear them, especially after she heard horses, and a man’s voice. 

The smell did not get any better, either, and she recognised it she’d known before, with Yoren and the others. “Dead men”, she whispered to Gendry, and he nodded. 

A dense thicket of brambles grew just south of the village, where she could see the thatched roofs behind it. Gendry might have seen more, but he would not dare to stand up and look beyond it, least they be noticed. So instead they crept along it until Arya spotted a hole wide enough for her to creep through, and she could see what caused the smell. 

The bodies hung right there, beside the peaceful-looking waters of the Gods Eye, the things that had once been men, their feet such as they still had them, still in chains, with crows pecking at their bare flesh flapping from corpse to corpse. And for every crow, there seemingly were a hundred flies swarming all around the dead. When the wind blew from the lake, she could see the corpses swinging, heard the chains that bound them to the wood rattle. 

The one closest was missing an arm, and the crows had eaten most of his face, and Arya could see the bone beneath it. Its throat and chest had been ripped open, and she could see the entrails and ragged flesh dangling out from where it had been opened. 

She made herself look at the one beside him, and the one beside him, and the one beside that one as well, telling herself she was as hard as stone. The corpses were all so savaged and torn apart, she had not even realized they had been stripped before now. They did not _look_ like naked people, they did not even look like men at all. Their eyes, and sometimes the whole of their faces were missing, eaten by the crows, and many of them lacked arms or legs. One had been ripped apart entirely, and all that remained for Arya to see was a single leg, still chained and dangling slightly in the wind. 

_Fear cuts deeper then swords._

The corpses could not hurt them, but whoever had put them there could. Well beyond the gibbets were two men leaning on their spears in front of a long house beside the lake. A pair of tall poles had been driven into the mud there, with two banners drooping from them, both of them so pale that it was hard to make out what colour they had been, but it looked to Arya as if one was supposed to be red, and the other maybe yellow or orange. 

_I don’t need to see their banners to know they’re Lannisters_ , she thought, _Robb would_ _never do this, who else slaughters peasants but the Lannisters?_

She crawled back through the hedge, ignoring the thorns that bit into her skin. 

“And?”, Gendry whispered, “What did you see?” 

“Lannisters”, was all she said. 

Thankfully, for once he was not too stupid and knew what she meant. 

They would have to be as far away from here before sunrise as they could manage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, well …  
> what can I say …
> 
> Almost a year of constant rewriting (actually, slightly more than one year), and I'm still not convinced of everything. (Also, I still don't know the ending, although I have a vague idea)
> 
> Hope it was a good read.


	2. Gendry

Gendry had never been this exhausted, not even after long days spent hammering on metal at Master Mott’s forge. Around him the others slept, as worn out from their flight as he was, after half a night and a day spent running away from the Gods Eye. Arry said they should go east, and he supposed that they _had_ gone roughly eastwards, but the truth was that none of them had really cared. 

They’d just run as far away as it was possible for boys raised in a city, one of whom had to be almost carried, and a little two-year old girl. 

_Well, three boys and two girls._ He tried not to think about that too much. 

She was asleep, too, lying not far from him next to a fallen tree that she used as a shelter, with a softly-snoring Weasel next to her. 

Gendry was quite grateful that the young one slept as deep as she did, what with all her crying during the day. 

Lommy was lying next to a tree, with Hot Pie beside him. A day ago, Lommy had been hardly able to walk, now he had to lean on one of the others at the best of times. At the worst, he and Hot Pie had to carry him. 

_Surprisingly heavy, that one._

That was about everything he remembered. The day had gone by in a blur of hurrying through the woods, tripping over high-standing roots, slipping on wet leaves and into mud, trying not to let Lommy fall to the ground combined with the sound of Weasel crying and Arry trying to get a sense of direction while talking about moss on trees. 

_Arya_ , he had to correct himself, _her name’s Arya. Arya_ Stark _._

He had tried not to think about that during the day, yet now, while he was desperate to stay awake and guard their camp - or what he’d called camp, mostly to make Lommy and Hot Pie feel safer, and perhaps even to make things easier for Arya - she kept worming her way into his thoughts. 

_Worming. Worms._ She’d eaten worms again, today. Tried to make them eat some, too, since they had nothing else. After Hot Pie had taken one and thrown up immediately thereafter, Gendry had chosen to go hungry. 

_Why am I thinking about worms again? I’m too tired for this, I can’t think straight, and I_ _should be watching out for them._

He shook his head a few times, took in a deep breath of the uncomfortably cold air, and imagined to feel a bit more alert. 

_Right. Arry’s a lady pretending to be a street-girl pretending to be a boy for the Night’s_ _Watch while running from the king and is actually called Arya Stark._

That sounded ridiculous, even in his head. If he said that out loud, he thought he might just burst out laughing. 

Of course he’d known that _something_ was up with her. 

_Why couldn’t she be a starving girl hoping to go unnoticed to get food? Or some kind of_ _witch or assassin-in-training hiding with them. Or a wildling soon-to-be-spearwife?_

Worse, it even kind of made sense. In a way. More than the spearwife, at least. The way she spoke, for example, so different from how one normally spoke in King’s Landing, yet he’d never thought about that. He’d just figured she wasn’t from King’s Landing. 

_Though that’s not even wrong._

Why did he feel that was funny? He was pretty sure that nothing should be funny right now, with them on the run. _Can you be drunk on sleeplessness?_

_Sleeplessness. Funny word. Sounds like some fancy thing that a highborn might_ _say._

Arya hadn’t, thought, at least not when he heard her. 

_Has her father, maybe?_

No. He didn’t think Lord Stark had used the word _sleeplessness_ , the one time he’d spoken with him. 

_Wait, what? Oh, seven hells._

Her father. Of course Lord Stark was her father, why hadn’t he thought of that during the day? Now that he thought about it, he’d even looked similar, and spoke similar, too. 

How had he missed that? Of course he’d known of Lord Stark’s treason, of his execution and everything, and wondered why both Hands who’d visited him ended up dead, but had figured that it just was bad luck on his part. That wouldn’t be anything new, he’d never had too much luck. 

He’d also thought about how Arya must be fleeing because they named her father a traitor. 

He just hadn’t realised that it was the same person who’d visited him. Well, part of him had, obviously, and just now decided to let the rest of him know. 

That sounded stupid, even to him. 

_Stupid_ , she’d called him. Maybe she was right. 

Still, he was the one who was currently guarding her and the others, no matter if he was a stupid bastard or not. 

_Guarding, yes._ He’d said he’d take the first watch. Not that he could do much, of course, but it made him feel _safe_. 

_Watching, yes, I should be watching if there’s anything dangerous._ Suddenly the feeling of being stuck behind a hedge while Arry described dangling corpses to him came back, making fear creeping all over him again. 

He looked into the darkness around him, stared intensely on that one big large tree in front of him, with that nasty root that he knew must be somewhere there because it had thrown him and Hot Pie to the ground earlier, making Lommy crying out in pain as he fell into the dirt. 

He stared and stared, yet could not find it. 

Trying to search for it was no luck, he decided, and stared instead at the slightly darker tree a little behind the other one, just barely visible in the moonlight, and the fear hit him again. 

_What if we didn’t make it far enough?_

What if he fell asleep, just to wake up and find himself surrounded by murderous knights? 

Suddenly he believed to hear a horse in the darkness, could almost see it, just barely hidden by the shadows, could hear voices of men shouting things like _Here they are!_ and _You didn’t really think you’d gotten away, did you?_

_Things. You’re seeing things, they’re not real, you’re just making them up._

Then a wolf started to howl, and that most definitely _was_ real, and Gendry wondered whether it would be better to be eaten by a wolf or to be tortured to death. 

When he finally lost his battle against exhaustion and fell into an uneasy sleep, he was desperately afraid. 

And as if to mock him, he woke up with Arry’s face hovering in front of his eyes. 

“Get up, stupid!” 

It took him a moment to realize what she just said. Then he tried to stand up, nearly fell down again, and found to his surprise that she’d caught him. Well, almost. He was to heavy for her to hold, so she fell down with him. 

Hot Pie looked at them for a moment, then burst out laughing, while both of them got up and decided not to talk about it. Instead, Gendry made Hot Pie stop by reminding him that they’d have to carry Lommy again, and not long afterwards, everything was almost as it was the day before, with the possible exception that Gendry thought Weasel might be crying a _bit_ less then before, and that Lommy could walk even less on his own. 

Arya again tried to get them walking towards east, and he imagined that she might even have succeeded. 

Lommy again was surprisingly heavy for a sick young boy, and again talked a surprising amount about how they should have yielded for food, at least for someone who whimpered every time he took a step. 

He was about to give up on the day entirely when Arya suddenly ran off and disappeared between the trees, with both Gendry and Hot Pie shouting for her to come back, and Weasel sobbing louder again once she no longer saw her. 

_Great._

She had been against leaving the others behind when he suggested it, and Gendry hoped that she still thought the same. Otherwise neither of them would last long. Certainly not Lommy, nor Weasel neither, and he’d bet his bull’s head helmet that Hot Pie had no idea where they were. 

He certainly had none. 

The truth was, and he hated to admit it, they all depended on a little girl hiding from the King to get them anywhere, and even then they’d probably just die somewhere else. 

And now that little girl was gone. 

Just as he realized that he was indeed very thoroughly lost now, he heard movement and branches cracking, and Arya come back with her sword in one hand, with blood still on it, and a rabbit in the other, its little entrails hanging out in a crude manner. 

“Sorry”, she said, “but we need food, and I just saw that one and - well. Does anyone know how to make fire?” 

“You don’t?” 

“No? Why should I do?” 

Gendry supposed he shouldn’t be so surprised that she didn’t. 

Just as he thought they’d have to eat it raw, Hot Pie supplied “I know. Well, I’ve got me some ideas. You need fire in an oven, and I watched the men making it with the Night’s Watch. It’s simple really. Just take a stick, then - ” 

Arya cut him off. 

“All right, you know, talk about it when we make camp, we’ve still got one or two hours.” 

Hot Pie groaned, and Lommy gave something like a soft whimper. 

“What? I don’t want to be captured. If you want to, just stay here.” 

Gendry wasn’t happy either, but knew Arry was right. 

It worked out surprisingly well for them. With roughly an hour left till sunset, the woods gave away to fields, with a village at their far end. 

Or what had been a one, anyway. The fields were burned and dead, and the houses themselves consisted of a few black walls, great lumps of ash lying around it with smaller chimps of burned wood and clay everywhere on the ground. At least no one would notice their little fire between the still-smoking parts of it. 

The leg of the rabbit he got to eat was the most wonderful thing he’d ever tasted, together with the water they drank from a little stream running through the village. Afterwards, the sun had set and they figured they’d have to spend the night there or somewhere close nearby. 

Hot Pie was determined to stay inside the village, and Lommy refused to be separated from him, even after Arya had told both of them that it wasn’t safe there. Even burned, someone could still come by and hope there was something left, and if that someone found them … 

But Hot Pie wouldn’t listen. 

In the end she gave up and they both decided to sleep outside, hidden in the woods just far enough so no one would see them from the fields, while Hot Pie and Lommy would sleep amongst the ruins. Gendry thought that dangerously stupid, but it gave him a nice opportunity to talk with Arya without being overheard. 

Well, if one didn’t count Weasel, but she couldn’t exactly speak. 

He wasn’t much of a talker, so he decided to just start with the obvious. 

“You’ve got an idea where we’re going?” 

“East”, she said, “We’ll come across the Kingsroad somewhere, then follow it north.” 

“And then? We can’t walk all the way to the Wall, we’ll either be killed or just starve on our own.” 

She looked uncertain for a moment, then said “We won’t. And we don’t have to go to the Wall either. Winterfell is much closer, we could go there. Or Riverrun, we’d be safe there” 

“Because - err …” 

“Because they’re my brother’s and uncle’s castles. They’ll keep us safe.” 

_No, they’ll keep_ you _safe. They won’t give a damn about the likes of me or Hot_ _Pie._

“Oh, right, I forgot. Sorry, _m’lady_ ” 

“Stop that!”, she snapped. 

“But you _are_ a lady! No matter what you say, you are, and that’s why you want to go to whatever castle, because _you_ will be safe there. _M’lady._ ” 

Anger swept through him while something in the back of his head noticed he was shouting, and that shouting wasn’t _exactly_ a good idea while on the run, but he didn’t care anymore. 

“ _You_ will be safe there, because you’re highborn, and these others will take you in, because _they_ are, too, and everything’ll be fine for you, but not for me, or for Hot Pie, or anyone else, because we’re only stupid bastard lowborns who nobody gives a shit about, but you won’t care with all your _real_ friends all ’round you, you’ll - ” 

Suddenly his cheek hurt, and he realized she must’ve slapped him. 

“Stop it, _Gendry!_ ”, she snapped again, yet this time it somehow managed to sound _pleading._

He stared at her, puzzled. 

“I _do_ care”, she told him, her voice softer, more in line with the pleading look she gave him, “Just because no one else doesn’t ever think about you doesn’t mean that I don’t. Just that everyone else is stupid.” 

“Oh, right, so _you_ care about me, then? Plenty of good that’ll do me when I’m starving to death outside while you’re in a bloody _nice warm castle_!” 

“ _Stop it!_ I said I care about you, and when we get to Riverrun, whoever’s there will care about _me_ , and I’ll tell them to let you stay.” 

“An they’ll let us stay if you say so?” 

Arya bit her lip. _Oh, great._

“I hope. I’ll say something, that you saved me or something, that you brought me there, that I’d have been captured otherwise, maybe that I’d be dead if not for you, they can’t just ignore it, they’ll listen, they’ll - ” 

“Oh, right. Of course, everyone’s believing that. Of course we saved you, because a cripple, a baker and a blacksmith are so great at saving people.” 

“And? Better than nothing. Besides, I wouldn’t even be lying. Well, not _all_ the time. I probably _would_ be dead or captured if I’d’ve been alone.” 

That made him pause. 

_Yes, I suppose she’s right. I’d be dead too, without her. Strange._

He’d have to think on that. Well, he had all night. 

_Probably not the whole night. Another day like this, and I’ll die of lost sleep._

The hours he’d stayed awake last night hadn’t done him any good, and in case anyone found them, what was he supposed to do? He had a nice big sword, all right, but no idea on how to use it. 

_Arya has more ideas on that_ , he supposed, _she caught the rabbit, after all._

Still, he tried to stay awake for a bit after that while the others slept, thinking about him and Arya and Hot Pie, even Weasel who lay next to Arya again, and Lommy back at the farm, his leg getting worse with every moment. 

_Was it wrong to let them sleep there? Someone might come to look if there’s anything left_ _to raid, if there’s some coins that survived the fire._

Then he realised that thought was stupid. Coins were either made of copper or silver, not iron, and would’ve melted easily in that fire. 

_Then_ he realized that he only knew that because he’d been smithing half his life, and that not everyone was a smith. 

Something hit him, violently ripping him from his thoughts. Yet when he jumped to his feet, ready to go down with a fight, no one was there. Only Weasel, lying on the ground next to a fallen tree, the bones of the rabbit they’d eaten, and Arya, struggling in her sleep. 

_Struggling. Lashing out. As if she’s trying to keep something away from her._

He sat down next to her, and saw tears on her cheeks. 

_She’s crying in her sleep._

Nightmares. Gendry was no stranger to them. He’d had them almost as long as he could remember. About his mother, about a man shouting at him, about the Goldcloaks. 

And the sea, and the feeling of drowning. 

_Think of something else, stupid._ It was no good to ponder on these memories. 

Sobbing filled his ears, and when he looked at her he could see the tears flowing, her body struggling against some unseen captor. 

_Should I wake her up?_

Maybe it would help, for a moment, but what if she’d just continue dreaming afterwards? What if she didn’t _want_ him to intrude on her sleep, if she’d be furious at him? 

He looked at her again, still trying to escape her captor, then resolved to wake her up. 

Kneeling next to her he shook her, softly, slowly, waking her. 

“Arya”, he whispered, not too loud. He didn’t want to wake Weasel as well. 

He fancied to hear a “No”, though whether it was meant for him or for something in her dream he could not say. Then she opened her eyes, looked at him for a moment, her face the very image of confusion. 

“Gendry?”, she stared at him. 

_What am I supposed to do now?_ , he almost panicked. 

“You, ahm, you were - struggling. In your sleep. Sorry, I thought you might - er” 

She nodded faintly, which he supposed he could interpret as either a _thank you_ or as just _I_ _know_ , and fell asleep again immediately thereafter. 

He waited for a bit, but she didn’t move again in her sleep. 

Hopefully, his own sleep would be as devoid of nightmares as hers was now. 

It turned out to be indeed better than it had been the night before, but again he woke to the sight of Arya’s face above his, telling him to get up. 

To his horror, he saw the sun was already high in the sky. 

“Why didn’t you wake me earlier? We would’ve been - ” 

“Doesn’t matter, Gendry. Lommy can’t walk, so we wouldn’t get very far anyways.” 

“Lommy can’t walk?” 

He wondered if that was really as shocking as he thought it was; Lommy had become weaker and weaker and the gash in his leg uglier and uglier during the last days. He had always been clinging to one of them as to not fall down, but if he couldn’t walk _at all_ _…_

“No, but Hot Pie’s found food.” 

Her face light up a bit, though it seemed forced. In her left hand was a carrot, Gendry saw, one end good, the other burned black. 

“Looks like only everything above ground burned. Everything that grows _in_ the earth is still good. Well, almost, and it tastes all wrong even if you wash it first, but it’s better than nothing. Here.” 

She gave it to him, and Gendry broke his fast on a half-burned carrot washed in the stream running through the field, next to the village, that they’d used to drink the day before. 

“Hot Pie’s running all around the rest of the fields, looking for whatever else is there. I looked, too. Found a chicken, could even eat half a wing, but the rest was just ash. I’ll show you. We’ve got all day. No one will suspect there’s anyone in the ruins, and even if, we can always slip back into the woods. We’ll get enough food for a few days, and maybe Lommy will get a little better, but …” 

_More like he’s going to die_ , he finished for himself. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it weird that I sometimes picture Rory (from _Doctor Who_ ) while writing Gendry?


	3. Arya 2

The meat was the best Arya had ever tasted. It wasn’t anything special, not really. In fact, probably every other highborn lady would be offended if you tried to set it before her, and Sansa would scream and run away from it. Still, Arya found that a bit of more-or-less roasted and more-or-less raw pork and chicken, which was infinitely better than all-raw rabbit, together with carrots and turnips made for a surprisingly rich midday meal. Back at Winterfell, there had been food twice as fine as this every day, and yet Arya had never found it quite as good. 

The others may think her not as hungry as them, after she’d eaten these worms, but they didn’t fill her belly as much as she’d like. Mostly, they just helped to convince herself that at least she hadn’t eaten _nothing_. Still, she supposed she was less hungry than the others. 

The day had been easy on them all, but Arya knew they could not stay in the ruined village for too long. Despite what she’d told the others, someone _would_ come by, and she wasn’t sure if they’d be quick enough to hide, and most certainly they’d loose Lommy. But they couldn’t go on either, or they’d die before making it near Riverrun or even just the Trident. She hoped Robb was there, or someone else from Winterfell to recognise her. It had been bad enough in King’s Landing, when she’d had to convince the guards to let her in again, after she’d sneaked out of the keep. 

There was nothing to help it. Going on would mean leaving Lommy behind, and Weasel too, most like. The girl wasn’t really quick at walking yet, and half the time Arya had to carry her. That would slow them down, except, of course, Lommy already made them even _slower_. She knew she’d be quicker alone, or maybe together with Gendry. He’d suggested as much, after all. If she could take him with her, and reach the Trident, maybe \- 

_No_ , she told herself, _I won’t leave the others._

She didn’t want to be like Cutjack and Tarber, who’d left _them_ behind. Her father had said that alone she’d die, and she’d already admitted as much to Gendry. And Hot Pie was the only one who knew how to start a fire, and he wouldn’t leave Lommy, so they had to stay together anyways. 

_Lommy._ Hot Pie knelt beside him, trying to feed him something. He couldn’t move at all anymore, so Gendry had used his helmet as a bucket to bring him water while she and Hot Pie had searched for food. There was surprisingly much, quite a lot more than they could’ve hoped for, enough for a week at the very least, that they’d laid on a set of relatively clean stones in one of the ruins. 

_If we can carry all of it._

What a strange problem. For days they’d been starving, and now suddenly there was too much to carry. 

Before their improvised midday meal, when the food started to pile up even _after_ they’d removed the more burned bits, they figured it was probably best to eat as much of the rest as they could now, so they might last a bit longer. 

So now they all sat (well, except for Weasel, who’d started to run around after she’d eaten enough and now seemed surprisingly happy for a girl who normally wouldn’t do much more than constantly crying) on the floor around their new-found supplies, and for once were uncaring enough to let Hot Pie go on about how to bake cakes and make soups for ages. 

Arya had half a mind to use Gendry’s helmet as a kettle and try one of his recipes, but then she’d probably just ruin the metal, and it was already tasty enough for her anyways. 

Still, it was a good distraction from the fact that she’d no idea about what they’d do now, with Lommy unable to walk, and it kept her from thinking about her father. She did that enough at night in her dreams, she didn’t really want to do it at day, too. 

Even Lommy seemed a bit happier, and when Hot Pie paused for a moment, he himself started talking about how he used to dye wool, back in King’s Landing. Very slowly, in a weak, pained voice and frequent stops, yet no one cared about that, happy enough that he could talk at all. 

All in all, it was a surprisingly pleasant day, and though none of them really knew what to do, they were all able to ignore that for a while. After midday Gendry asked whether she’d be willing to teach him how to use a sword (they still had those that Yoren had given them, from the Goldcloaks at the inn, and Gendry had brought a relatively straight branch that could double as a practice sword). 

He used an overly formal tone and called her _m’lady_ again, making Arya chuckling and annoyed at the same time, before she realized they should check if Hot Pie was near enough to listen. 

“You know, you really shouldn’t talk like that”, she told him, “What if Hot Pie hears?” 

She’d already spent hours hoping no one had noticed her shouting for Winterfell during Ser Amory’s attack, there was no need to make it even worse. 

“Why do you want to spar with me, anyways? Last time I offered, you weren’t very eager.” _And you weren’t too bad with that sword at the Gods Eye, either_ , she thought, though she wouldn’t admit that to him. 

“I’m not asking for fighting, m’lady. Just about hunting. It’s no good if only one of us is able to actually _catch_ something, is all, m’lady.” 

“Not much to teach, really. Just don’t try to hammer your game into the ground, it’s not steel on an anvil. Just try it out, you’ve got a stick, imagine that treestump over there is something you want to catch. And stop talking like that!” 

She might have been amazed at his ability to switch between treating her as just another boy and a lady without ever getting it wrong in front of the others if just hadn’t been this _infuriating_. 

He brought his stick down on it, hitting it so hard it almost broke, before he continued talking: 

“Well, but you’re still - ” 

“Yes, all right, I _am_ highborn, got a last name and a sigil and all, but you know what? I don’t really care about it. Well, I do, a bit, I do care about my brothers and my sister and my mother and father” - Her voice was a bit shaky for a moment, but she caught herself quickly - “but I don’t really care about being highborn. You know, I’ve got a brother.” 

“Yes, I know, he’s currently fighting a war as King o’ the North, or something like that.” 

“What? - Oh, yes, he’s my brother, too, but I didn’t mean him. I’ve got another one, Jon Snow.” 

She waited for a moment, till Gendry noticed the last name _Snow_. 

“I never cared, and never understood why others would. Father didn’t really care, either, and raised him at Winterfell. He’s my brother as much as Robb is - he’s the one you thought of - and he’s always been the better friend, too. And he never called me _lady_. He even got a wolf, too.” 

Uncertainty crossed Gendry’s face, then changed into confusion. 

“A wolf? You mean, like a wooden toy one, or one made of iron?” 

“What?” she hadn’t expected Gendry to ask about _that._ Maybe more about who Jon was, or what they’d done at Winterfell, or maybe even who his mother was. Arya hadn’t even realized she’d mentioned Ghost. “No, a real one. We all had one. Well, actually, not real wolves, but direwolves. Jory said they probably were the only ones south of the Wall, but my brothers just found them as pups near a road. Their mother died, so we took them to Winterfell. We wanted to take them south with us, but Joffrey wanted Nymeria dead, so I had to chase her away, and then Queen Cersei just had Lady killed instead, even though she didn’t even do anything.” 

He stared at her for a moment, then gave her a look that might’ve meant something like _you’re mocking me._ “Nymeria?” 

“My wolf. Sansa’s - she’s my sister - called hers Lady. Robb’s is Grey Wind, Rickon’s Shaggydog.” She wondered if Bran had named his wolf by now. Father had told her that he’d woken up, after all, so maybe his wasn’t nameless anymore. She’d have to reach Riverrun, to find out. “Jon’s named his one Ghost, because he’s white as snow and never makes a sound.” 

The staring continued for a moment, then he went back to hacking his stick on the treestump as if it was meat to be butchered, making Arya almost laugh. 

“Not like that. Try holding the stick different, not like a hammer. More like this” - she showed him - “and you really don’t have to cut the tree in half, Gendry.” 

They spend a large part of the afternoon like this with even Hot Pie eventually joining in for a moment, and Weasel grabbed a short burned stick she’d found on the ground and started thrashing it on everything she saw until it broke, at which point she started to cry again and they had to stop. 

_It’s almost sundown anyway. We could use some sleep._

This time though, Arya resolved to stay with Lommy and Hot Pie in the burnt village, trying to make herself comfortable on the ash-covered ground. Her back was soon completely black, and washing herself in the stream wouldn’t be too easy when Hot Pie might see her, but she didn’t want to leave them again. 

_A pack should stay together_ , she thought, again remembering her father telling her about how the lone wolf would die. 

Lommy had been asleep during half the day already, and Hot Pie and Weasel were fast asleep, too - in Weasel’s case cuddling against the boy after he’d tried to sing her something that might have been a nursery rhyme. 

Gendry soon followed, and Arya tried to, too, but soon found herself afraid again of everything, from nightmares about her father to what they’d do on the morrow. So instead, she tried to picture the maps she’d so often seen in Winterfell’s library, where, whenever they couldn’t go outside because of rain or snow or storm, she’d read about Nymeria who’d conquered Dorne and Visenya, Aegon’s Warrior Queen, and sometimes about the Wildlings, too. Jon had known something about maps, too, she remembered. He’d draw them on the dirty floor in the broken tower, and they’d pretend that small stones were their armies trying to conquer the other’s land. Sometimes they read accounts of real wars beforehand, and tried to replay them, too, thought that seldom worked out as it was supposed to. She remembered having long arguments about whether Nymeria or Daeron the Young Dragon was better. Arya had always thought that pointless, since it was _obvious_ that Nymeria had done better. Unlike the latter, she hadn’t lost everything again in a fortnight, after all. 

Later, she tried to find the Ice Dragon in the sky for a while, to be certain which way was north, but the trees were to close and to high to see anything and she didn’t want to leave the ruin in search of a better place to watch. 

Then she listened to the wolves howling for a while, wondering where Nymeria might be now. 

In the end, she figured they could need a guard, and resolved to stay awake as long as possible, until she almost fell on Gendry while trying to stand upright and watch over what remained of the walls. 

He stirred, and even though Arya hadn’t really touched him that much, he woke up, looking up at her. 

“Arry?” 

By now, Arya liked it when he called her that. It was a stupid name, and she didn’t really like pretending to be a boy, but he never called her _m’lady_ when he used _Arry_ first. 

He blinked in confusion, looking at the black sky before turning his head back to face hers. 

“What are you doing? It’s the middle of the night.” - Slowly, his voice went from sleepy to alert - “Why are you still awake?” 

“Can’t sleep.” _Don’t want to sleep. Don’t want to see father standing there again, and the_ _crowds cheering for Joffrey._ “And I thought, well, wouldn’t be bad if someone’s keeping a watch.” 

Sitting up, Gendry looked at her for a moment, his face having that thinking expression again. 

Softly, he said, “You know … if you want to talk ’bout it …” 

“About what? I just can’t sleep, that’s all. There’s nothing wrong with me.” 

“Arya, I’ve seen you sleeping, remember? Last night, I woke you after you thrashed ’round while asleep.” 

She honestly couldn’t remember that, though she _did_ remember having nightmares. 

_That’s not fair, why should he know? It’s my own business what I’m dreaming_ _about._

“And come on, I’m not stupid. I know who your father was, and I - ahm - I know how it feels.” 

Suddenly anger was rushing through her. 

_No you don’t! You don’t know how I feel, you can’t know, you -_

“Arya”, he interrupted her. _Did I just say that out loud?_ From the look on Gendry’s face she might have even shouted it out loud. She really _was_ tired, but - 

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I don’t know. I never lost my father at an execution, I never even had one, after all. But … you know, my mother got sick and died within a few days, and I know how _I_ felt then, with nothing I could do …” 

Briefly, uncertainty crossed his face. 

“Well, I just thought … I never had someone to talk about it, then, and I think that maybe it would’ve helped … and if you … well, just know I’ll listen to you, if you want to.” 

He used her moment of confusion to lay her down on something that was probably ash, then said: 

“But now you sleep. Don’t know what we’re going to do on the morrow. Come on, you’ll be safe. I’ll watch out for you now, no one can do that all night.” 

She nodded slightly, though she didn’t know if it was to thank him or just agreeing that no one could stay up all the time. She truly _was_ tired. No matter her fear of nightmares, after she’d laid down on the ground her eyes closed within a minute. 

And while she did see her father again for a moment, and Ilyn Payne with Ice above him, these images quickly faded and gave way to a forest, deep and dark, but as comforting to her as if it were her home. She ran, with her little cousins all around her, through bushes and over crooked roots. When the trees gave away to fields there was a village in the distance, at the shore of a lake that she’d never seen before, but that was still familiar to some part of her. Some of the men-made rocks had broken down into little hills of stones and wood, but at the center stood a keep she’d seen before, with blood on its walls. She felt a scent that was well-known to her, yet hard to distinguish from the many different others. 

_Where’s she gone?_ , she wondered, _how can it be that her paths ends her yet she is not_ _dead? Where could she go?_

Arya woke with a start, and found herself still on a heap of ash in the ruin, where Gendry had placed her last night. The sky was bright with the sun already high, and she found Lommy lying not far from her, next to something that might have been a chest, once. 

She looked for Gendry and Hot Pie, and for a terrible moment she feared they might have left her behind until she found the bull’s head helmet. 

_Gendry wouldn’t go without that._

That made her feel safer again, and she continued to look at her surroundings. The heap of food was still there, too, and she noticed that someone - probably Gendry - had stuffed the helmet full with it. Maybe he thought it was easier to carry this way, and she had to agree. They already had their swords, and neither scabbards nor belts to fast them on, it would be hard to hold much in only one hand. 

As she stood up and looked down on herself to see how black her clothing was - it was so dark that no one would notice if she’d suddenly walk into the hall at Castle Black and talk to Jon, she decided - she heard someone call her name. 

“Arry”, someone called for her, in a voice so low and weak she didn’t even recognize it at first. 

_Lommy._ His voice had grown impossibly weaker since he’d told them how to dye wool the day before. 

Turning around to kneel beside him, she saw he was as pale as a corpse, with his leg an infected ruin of blood and flesh. She could even see a bone. In a crude way, he reminded her of the bodies the Lannisters had hung at the gallows. 

_He’d be the same if we’d gone to them._ Was there truly so little she could do? She didn’t really like him, of course, but that didn’t mean she wanted him to _die_. 

“We should’ve yielded.” 

“I told you they wouldn’t help us. They would’ve killed us.” 

“I’d better be dead than like this. Useless. You were right, Arry. I can’t hunt no boars. I just … I guess I want you know that before I die.” 

“Don’t say that. You’re _not_ going to die.” 

“I am. Don’t lie. I’m good as dead. If I’m not dying, Kurz ain’t be dead, too.” 

_He’s right_ ,she realised, _Kurz was a lot stronger and he still died._ Arya wasn’t stupid, she knew Lommy would probably die, had even said as much to Gendry - but telling that to Lommy _himself_ was more difficult than she could have thought. 

“You. Are. Not. Going. To. Die.” 

“I am. And I’d rather have it quickly.” He sounded terrible then, using what little strength he still had to try and sound confident, but all Arya could hear was the fear he tried to hide beneath it. 

“What do you - ” 

“It hurts, Arry. I feel like I’m dead, but I ain’t. Not quite. I just want it to be over. You got a sword”, he tried to turn his head towards Needle, “Just do it.” 

Her breath seemed to fail as she realised what he asked of her. _He wants me to kill him._ _He_ wants _to die._

“I can’t kill you. I’ll help you. We’ll find a maester or …” 

“Maesters ain’t helping me live, Arry, and you can’t. But you can help me dying, at least.” 

“I can’t.” _I can’t just kill him. It’s_ wrong _._

“I was hopin’ you’d do it. You were the one beating Hot Pie bloody. You fought best at that village. If anyone can, then you.” 

“That was different. Hot Pie bullied me. These men attacked us. They were a threat. You’re an injured cripple. I can’t just kill you.” _Though it would be easier for us then. But_ _it’s wrong. Father would hate me if I did that._

“Think about it?”, he begged. She thought he said something else as well, but his voice was so low then that she couldn’t hear anymore. 

“I will”, she promised, if only to make him feel better. 

She remained silent after that. Remembering that a year ago, when she’d dreamt of living with the Wildlings she’d searched for things that might be useful in Maester Luwin’s books - he always let her read them, would sometimes explain things she didn’t understand, she’d never thought she’d miss him so much - books that explained how one could find a way without a map, she tried to think about that, apply everything she still knew, but it didn’t work. Every time she did something, Lommy’s words came back to her. 

_You can help me dying, at least._

It was as if they haunted her, during the day. Gendry came to her, and they talked about how best to go to Riverrun, a boy who’d never been outside his city and a girl who only had a vague recollection of the maps at Winterfell, but again it didn’t help. Finding that she was unable to think straight, she returned to the fields and stables around the village and again searched if there was anything they’d overlooked, as Hot Pie had done all day, but it was no use. 

_I can’t just kill him._

She tried talking to Hot Pie, too, but every time it seemed to end up with both of them complaining about something little and unimportant, and neither really listening to what the other said. When she ran out of ideas, she even tried to speak with Weasel, but of course that was of no use. The girl couldn’t talk, after all, even though she didn’t look _that_ much younger than Rickon. 

When the sun finally began to set, Lommy had stayed at the same spot during the entire day, not even moving to turn around and lay on his other side. She wondered how it was possible for him to look even worse than earlier, which somehow managed to do. 

When they sat down next to him to eat a bit, it seemed almost unnaturally silent. None of them had ever talked much, of course, but now it was just … 

Arya didn’t want to talk about anything, not with Lommy lying there next to them, fading in and out of sleep. Hot Pie didn’t seem to want, either, and Gendry wore his thinking face again. 

“What’s wrong?”, he asked after some while. Hot Pie didn’t say anything, and Arya wasn’t keen to, either. 

Gendry did not press the matter and stayed silent, almost as if he did not expect an answer at all, until she decided to tell him the truth. She wondered how he did that, making her talk by saying absolutely nothing. 

“Lommy asked me to kill him”, she admitted. 

Hot Pie looked up, surprised and seemingly shocked. 

“He asted me th’same yesterday. Tried to get it out o’ his head, I did, but he ain’t listening to me anymore.” 

“Same with me”, Arya told him. “I can’t kill him. I told him I’d find help, but he said I couldn’t help him to live, so I should help him to die” 

Hot Pie looked crestfallen and didn’t say anything anymore, while Gendry’s thinking face now seemed to be mixed with something else. _Pain, maybe_ , she thought, _or grief._ She wondered what he was thinking about. 

After a long while, he said: “I told you, Arry, he’s going to die. There’s nothing we can do. If that’s what he really wants …” 

“So you’d do it?”, Arya asked him. 

“Not sure. But I think maybe … I’d ask the same. When I’d be sure I won’t have long.” 

She’d never even thought of that. What would she do, if she were in Lommy’s place? It must be _terrible_ to be like this, not being able to move at all while you felt your time running out. She remembered another boy laying without much life in him. _Bran_ , she thought, _He’s like Bran._ But Bran had Maester Luwin, and her father had said that he’d woken up again. 

_And Lommy doesn’t have a maester. That’s just not fair._

When the others fell asleep, she stayed awake, agreeing with Gendry to again watch for soldiers coming, and to wake him up later. 

So she spend hours listening to the wolves, wondering if she could make out Nymeria’s voice between the others. By now, surely they must be near Castle Darry, where she’d had to chase her away? 

Lommy groaned in his sleep. 

She thought about what they had now. Enough food to last a fortnight, if they eat it carefully and managed to carry everything, two swords, though Gendry did not know how to use his, and if she was honest, she did not know much either. She had only practised with wooden swords in King’s Landing, after all. Syrio had said they would start using Needle in Winterfell, but Ser Meryn had killed him first. Her pack consisted of a cripple who couldn’t do anything, a baker’s and an armourer’s apprentice who both did no how to survive on their own, a two-year-old girl and herself. _We should get ourselves some horses, we would be faster with them_. Then she remembered that neither Lommy nor Weasel could ride on their own, even if they were able to find some. And while she could take Weasel on a horse together with herself, it was a different matter with Lommy. _He truly wants to_ _die_. 

Next to her, he groaned again. 

She remembered what Gendry had said, about what he’d do if it was him. _Maybe he’s_ _right, and I’d ask the same, too, if I knew I would die anyways, sooner or later_. But should she kill him? _No, that’s not right, is it?_ She wondered what her family would say, father and mother and Jon and Robb. Would they think her a disgusting brute? Or would they say it was right what she had done, to spare him the pain? Sansa would be terrified, of course. _But she’d be just as alarmed with me killing_ _soldiers_. 

She wished for Jon or her father to be there. _They’d know what to do_ , she thought, but neither was here and she couldn’t ask them. 

“Arry”, called a low voice beside her. Lommy had woken up again, and she crawled over to him on the other side, where she could barely see the remnants of the ruin’s wall. “Please, just do it. Make it end” 

Should she really do it? Without him, they would be thrice as fast as with him even without horses, and their food would last longer as well. _But that’s no reason to kill him, she_ _thought. If I kill him so we can be faster, I’d be no better than the criminals Yoren brought._ _They left us too, just to be faster._

Quietly, she leaned over him, her sword in hand. Arya looked in his eyes, with Needle pointing at his chest. _If you take a man’s life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and_ _hear his final words. If you cannot bear that, than perhaps the man does not deserve to die_ , her father had said. She suspected it was not meant for this, but she did it all the same. 

“Are you sure?”, she asked him one last time. 

He nodded so slowly she could barely see it. “Yes”, he whispered, and she stabbed Needle through his heart. It was harder then anything she’d done before. Killing the stableboy had more surprised and shocked her, since she hadn’t really planned that, and she hadn’t known him, nor the men she’d later killed at the village to escape. But she _had_ known Lommy, if only briefly. 

He died a moment later, with a smile on his lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just used [asearchoficeandfire.com](https://asearchoficeandfire.com/?q=Summer&povs%5B%5D=Arya) to see when Arya learns of Summer's name, only to find that she actually hasn't yet (As of _A Dance with Dragons_ ).
> 
> Let's see if GRRM still remembers that when (and if, but I'm quite sure they'll at least communicate, what with Arya seeing a tree in her dreams) they reunite.
> 
> Also, apologies for the weird way Lommy and Hot Pie talk. I didn't want them to speak perfect English (As that would make no sense. Most children living in the streets don't really speak formal language, as Arthur Conan Doyle demonstrated rather impressingly in his Sherlock Holmes stories with the Baker Street Irregulars), which they don't do in the books, but in many other pieces of fanfiction (look at the scene in which they try to get Needle from Arya), but I'm neither living on a street nor even a native speaker, so I had to settle with this butchered version of English instead.
> 
> It's actually quite funny how members of the lower class talk in the books, the prime example probably being the stableboy Arya kills in King's Landing, who's inverting the use of “-s” after verbs (“I says, come”, and “She don't know me”). Or is there actually some dialect that's working that way, and I've just never heard about it?


	4. Gendry 2

The days passed in silence, and not the nice kind of it either. Hot Pie wouldn’t say a word, even if asked, and Arya seemed to be brooding even more than before. She still led them, in a fashion, occasionally saying in what direction they should go, but the talkative, girl she’d been before was gone. Now it was more like when he’d first met her, when she hadn’t talked at all unless spoken to first. 

None of them ever said a word that wasn’t necessary. 

_Funny, isn’t it? Lommy’s dead, and yet now we think more about him than before._

He himself certainly did, and if Hot Pie’s anger and fear of Arya was any indication, he was, too. 

_Not to mention how distant Arya has become._

While they continued practising, and she continued to correct his mistakes when it came to hunting – not that any of them was hunting right now, they had enough food with them for a while, even if it had started to rot a bit at the edges – her constant teasing and not-really insulting had stopped almost entirely. Where before she’d seemed to enjoy herself teaching him, he got the impression that now it was nothing more than an unpleasant duty to her. 

Even Weasel had noticed that something had changed, and while she had yet to begin her crying again, her rare attempts at playfullness had ceased. 

Sometimes it seemed as if Hot Pie or even Arya wished to just stop, not caring where they were, and then to give up altogether. Gendry sometimes felt it, too. 

_We all knew Lommy would die_ , he reminded himself, _it shouldn’t be so much of an_ _issue._

And yet it was, even to him. When he’d thought about what he would do in Lommy’s place … 

_You didn’t think about what you_ would _do_ , he corrected himself, _You knew._

His mind was seemingly determined to always come back to that line of thought, and Gendry had to try again and again to keep himself away from it. 

_No good in dwelling on that._

Instead he forced himself to go on, never to stop for a moment, and hope that the others would do the same. It was him who checked if the Kingsroad was still there every few hours, after they’d reached it, but decided it was too dangerous to use it directly. It had been Arya’s idea: the road would lead them north till the Trident which they’d follow upstream to Riverrun, yet now she sometimes seemed uncaring about everything. It had been his idea to not walk on it, instead following just out of sight in the woods, so no one would ever bother them. He just had to check of it had made a sudden turning every few miles. 

The silence pressed heavily on Gendry’s mind, and, he suspected, on everyone else’s, too. 

They’d used to talk a bit before falling asleep, he remembered. Never about anything that was actually important, just little stories they’d heard. At the ruin Lommy had told them how to dye cloth. No one had really been interested in it, but it had given them a way to distract themselves from the rest of the day. That had been nice. 

After days of silent travelling, Gendry decided to break it one day. It was hard, to remember how to make sentences in a way that made them stick together, and of course he’d never been much of a talker before. Still, he resolved that _someone_ had to do it. And while no one ever answered him, or offered a story in return, they _did_ listen, and while no one would ever smile, at least the frown on their faces softened a bit. 

Or at least he told himself that. 

So the days passed, and while their food assumed a more and more rotten form, there was something else he noticed. 

Not immediately. In fact, Gendry found it very hard to lay his finger on it, and to find out what it was. 

It took him almost a week. 

But them he realized it: He’d stopped thinking about Arya Stark. He just thought about Arya, the girl he’d met on the road who happened to have means to keep them safe, if they made it. Who cared that she was highborn, or if they could stay together once there? No matter what, it would always be better than dying. 

Though he _did_ care about the fact that she never uttered a word unless she couldn’t avoid it. So he continued to tell her stories before she fell asleep, and sometimes long after that. He told her what he remembered about his mother, the yellow hair and the kind songs. He even tried to sing one, once, but found that a happy song only worsened the mood. 

So instead, he told her about life in King’s Landing, about life on the streets after his mother had died, told her everything he’d done to survive. All the stealing, all the cowardly running away. 

He wasn’t quite sure if she even listened, but found he didn’t care. Once he’d started, it was surprisingly difficult to stop again, so he just went on and on, telling her about his life at the forge, about Master Mott, about the swords he’d made and how he’d got the idea for the Bull’s head helmet that they now used as a basket for slowly-rotting meat that was still better than hunger. 

Sometimes she almost, but not quite, smiled at him. 

His hopes that it might be the same with Hot Pie were shattered, though. After the first few days he stopped listening entirely and fell asleep whenever Gendry raised his voice. 

Still, he refused to stop. He’d made his helmet in the likeness of a bull after people had said he was stubborn; he wouldn’t give up now. He would not. 

They’d reach Riverrun, they _would_. 

And until then, even if no one else ever spoke, he would continue to not accept the silence. He’d just tell stories against it, and hope that someone else someday would, too. 

Except that most of time it seemed as if the only ones who’d willingly say anything to him were wolves. Every night they howled, and every night Gendry hoped that they wouldn’t find them. While he generally _was_ thankful for the trees around them that kept them hidden from any traveller on the Kingsroad, he could have done without the wolves they held. 

Curiously, Arya seemed to disagree. She never said so, of course, but she’d taken more and more to listening to them whenever he wasn’t talking, or so it seemed. 

Or maybe that was just something his mind made up since there wasn’t much else to see while the days passed in silence and the nights with howling wolves, both equally depressing and making his feeble attempts at breaking them seem completely irrelevant. 

Until one day they weren’t. 

He hadn’t expected that. He hadn’t even planned that. After a while, it had all become sort of a ritual for them: in the evenings, Gendry would tell a story, Hot Pie and Weasel would fall asleep without uttering a word, and sometimes Arya would listen. Every time, he also wondered if he should tell her of her father, of how he’d met him. In the end, he always resolved not to. Arya was so quiet, whether because of guilt or grief over Lommy’s death he could not know; but he was sure that him reminding her of her father would only make it worse. 

But then one day she broke the silence, and offered him a story back. He’d told her of Erryk again, who’d been another of Master Mott’s apprentices and something of a friend to him, while most others had shunned him for being even lower born than they were themselves, that it was him who’d first called him a “stubborn bull”. And then, suddenly, when he had long finished and was half asleep himself, she started talking. 

“You know, Jon and I used to spend hours in the broken tower whenever it was stormy outside, so we couldn’t be in the Godswood.”, she began, her voice low, but determined, “It’s just an old ruin, really, but Old Nan used to say that it had been the tallest tower of Winterfell, once. When you are in the lowest level, not too high, it wasn’t to windy inside, and not too cold, but the ground is covered in dirt. That’s why we came there, we could draw things in the dirt. That was easier than getting paper from Maester Luwin, since no one ever asked us what we were doing, that way. We’d draw maps there, or, well, Jon would, he was much better at it.” 

Gendry listened, almost rejoicing that he’d finally succeeded. He only understood half of what she said, but that was already more than enough. 

“We brought stones with us and placed them on it. Then we’d pretend that we were Kings, and the stones were our armies, and we’d try to conquer the other’s land. Just that. Us, sitting there, arguing which stone would win every time two of them met.” 

Her face had a far-away looking expression on it, and just the barest hint of a smile. 

“It was so easy, then. We’d fight our little wars, and when one of us won, we’d just leave again. Most times, mother would scold me for being dirty again, but she always did that, and I’d never cared anyways. Then next time, we’d draw a different map, or maybe the same, and start again. Sometimes someone else would win then, though not often. Normally Jon always won, but that doesn’t mean I never did.” 

Gendry didn’t dare to interrupt her, but when she went on to tell him about how her brother had giver her the sword she still used, and how he’d named it and why, and told him about her sister, about how her older brothers had once tried to scare her in Winterfell’s crypts and how she’d seen right though it, and went on and on until it seemed that she wouldn’t ever stop again, he allowed himself to feel a spark of hope again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a bit shorter (and darker) than usual, but it ends with a spark of hope.
> 
> Also, I tried really hard not to make Arya seem like Auri (from _The Kingkiller Chronicles_ ), because that would be waaay over the top, but it was surprisingly hard. Now what does that say about me?


	5. Arya 3

Arya wondered how wet she could possibly get. It had been pouring down for days now, and long since they’d all started to cough. _Everything_ was wet, even the meat they caught, or whatever fruits and berries they found, not to mention the ground and the road. 

When they’d finally reached the Trident and started to look for the River Road that would take them to Riverrun, the road itself might as well have been a small river in its own right, and they’d had a hard time at recognizing it. 

Though that might also be because of something else. Neither Hot Pie nor Gendry had ever seen it before, after all, so it was again left to her to decide where to go. Only, near the Trident was Castle Darry. And near Castle Darry Arya found that she couldn’t think straight. 

She tried to remember where the road was. 

_It can’t be this hard, father showed me -_ us _\- pointed it out to us._

But somehow, it was. She’d been with Sansa then, and with Father, and had refused to say a single word to either of them, having been to busy seething about the Queen wanting to kill Nymeria, and the injustice of it all. 

_Joffrey was it who attacked me, and Mycah too!_ He _’s the one who should be punished, not_ _me or Nymeria, she was just defending me._

She knew she shouldn’t think about Mycah now, that would only distract her, but she could not help it. _Why did he have to die?_

If this crossroads had been cursed, it could not have been a greater distraction to her. 

_Maybe it is cursed_ , she thought, _every time I’m here, I start to think about Nymeria and_ _Mycah._

Only last time, her father had been with her. He’d stood right beside her, in fact, and pointed down the road. 

“Ride this way for a week and you’re at Riverrun, your mother’s home”, he’d said, to her and Sansa. 

_Sansa_ , Arya remembered, _she was here, too_. That had probably been the point, she realized now: Her father wanted them to talk to each other again, so he’d taken them both here, to show them where their mother had once lived. 

It hadn’t worked, of course. Sansa’s wolf had just been killed, and she’d blamed it on Arya, and Arya herself had just learned that Mycah, the butcher’s son, had himself ended as a butcher’s work, and blamed it on Sansa, who wouldn’t say anything against her valiant Joffrey. 

So neither of them had uttered a word, both lost in their own thoughts of guilt, blaming each other. 

Yet now Arya desperately wished she’d talked to Sansa, if only to have a happier memory of that day. 

Then she might be more certain that this streak of mud she saw now really was the road they searched for. 

“Arry”, someone ripped her from her rambling thoughts. 

_Gendry_ , she realized, then, _he’s practising swords with me, too._ For a brief moment, she wondered what she’d do if he’d end like Mycah. 

_No, that won’t happen. I won’t let them, and Joffrey and the Queen aren’t here now,_ _anyways._

“Arry, you’ve got any ideas? These roads look all the same to me. Oh, and I’m bloody cold and really don’t want to stay in this mud any longer, and I don’t think you should either. You don’t even have shoes.” 

That was true, she realized, she’d left them behind at the God’s Eye. Well, she’d manage., although it _would_ be more comfortable to hide beneath the trees again. Turning round, she saw that Hot Pie and Weasel hadn’t even left them, and were still hidden. 

_It does look like it might be the right one_ , she thought. The last time they’d spotted the sun was ages ago, but if memory served right then it lead west, and even with the heavy rain she didn’t think that any other stream would swell to the size of the one a little further north. But even so, if she was wrong … 

“This road”, Arya said, “It’ll lead us to Riverrun.” 

_Or at least in the right direction._ They’d walk a bit north of it, anyways, again to avoid the road, but this time also to avoid the mud. If it wasn’t the right one, they could always follow the Trident itself. Arya didn’t really remember if Riverrun was north or south of it, but it certainly was _near_ it. 

So they continued their walk, in the woods north of this road. Thankfully, the trees’ roots prevented the ground from becoming as slick as the open road, and sometimes gave a bit of shelter. That didn’t exactly mean they stayed _dry_ , but still. It was a start, Arya supposed. 

And continued to hope they’d find enough food. What they’d found at the village wouldn’t last forever, they’d always known that, but now was dwindling almost alarmingly fast, while the road didn’t seem to have an end. When she’d travelled south from Winterfell with her father, Arya had never realized quite how _vast_ the land here was. After Castle Darry everything had been something of a blur, and next thing she remembered shed been in King’s Landing feeling miserably hot. But even before that, she’d always spent ages just running around, exploring and making friends, without really paying attention to where they were going or how far. 

She remembered that once she’d brought her father flowers, and that later it had turned out they were slightly poisonous, and no one but Sansa had really cared about it. But if she’d do something similar now … 

_No, you can’t think of that, not now._

Now they walked all the time, through wet-dripping woods that never really seemed to change, and spent their nights hidden beneath whatever large tree or rock they could find. That way, at least they wouldn’t drown in mud. 

Arya wished she’d knew more about the crannogmen, who spend all their lives in something that was even _worse._ Travelling through the neck, it had seemed exciting, if a little odd that you could actually _live_ there, but now Arya came to truly admire and respect these people. Of course, she didn’t know a thing about live in the swamps of the neck. She’d been to busy reading about wildlings and warrior queens whenever she’d been in the library. 

_And now I know to run away from a shadowcat if I ever spot one, but not how to hunt in_ _a swamp without getting stuck, or what kind of berries I can eat and still wake up come_ _morning. What use is that?_

For some reason, though, it seemed as if the others had come to expect she’d know what to do. 

Well, Gendry, a bit. She didn’t know about Hot Pie, but then, she didn’t really know _anything_ about Hot Pie. He hadn’t talked to her ever since the village, after all. 

_Ever since I killed Lommy_ , she corrected herself. 

She was still wondering if it had been the right choice, still wished that Jon or her father had been there to help. Or Maester Luwin, that would’ve been even better. 

Yet they hadn’t been, and the only one who’d even talk to her now was Gendry. 

Actually, now that she thought about it, they talked rather a lot. Mostly at night, when Hot Pie was already asleep, trading stories. When he’d first started it had irritated her to no end, yet after she’d told him of how she and Jon had used to play in the broken tower, she found she couldn’t stop. 

So every night they talked and talked and talked. She knew of how Gendry had lived in the streets of King’s Landing ever since his mother had died, knew how he’d come to be called _the Bull._ He knew of Winterfell, of Jon, of little Bran who’d used to climb all over the castle, had sometimes found Jon and her in the broken tower playing and had asked whether he could join in. He knew of father and Ice, even of Syrio and of how Jon had given her Needle. 

She hadn’t expected it, but Arya found that sharing all this with someone else made it easier to think about it, easier to remember home without feeling as hopeless about it as she’d felt before. 

And whenever they’d finished telling stories and fell asleep, she dreamt of wolves. It was raining in her dreams, too, which her night-self found incredibly irritating, but still the stayed where she was, with her little cousins all around her. Sometimes she thought she’d caught a glimpse of a few humans lying on the ground while she was asleep, and sometimes she thought she’d caught a glimpse of a few wolves behind the trees when she was awake. 

And then she woke up again, every time, with the nice dream only a fading memory, and had to face _another_ bleak and depressing day, with Hot Pie’s silence and Weasels wailing. 

The girl actually didn’t cry very much anymore, now that she thought of it, but that didn’t mean it was any easier with her. She was only two, after all, and had even more trouble walking in the sticky wet dirt that they had. Mostly, Hot Pie would carry her, but never for too long. Arya didn’t ask why. He wouldn’t answer, anyways, and it was plain to see for everyone. They’d all got thinner since they’d started, even she herself who’d been skinny to begin with, but it was the worst for Hot Pie. In King’s Landing he’d been a fat young boy, yet by now he must have lost half his weight, and he always was so _pale._

So after a few hours Arya would carry her instead. They never talked about it, as much as they never talked about anything else, but after the first few days they’d all come to something of a silent understanding. Gendry carried the food they still had from the fields of the ruined village while Arya and Hot Pie took turns with Weasel. 

And still, the road just _refused to end_. Arya could have cursed it, called to all the Gods she knew to just _let the road end_ , but ever since the crossroads she’d started to think more and more of Sansa again, and how she’d never do that. 

_Just for Sansa_ , she told herself, she’d try. 

That night she dreamt of the wolves again, after sharing stories with Gendry and listening to his in turn. She could always hear them while they talked, could always hear the comforting howling that she’d become so familiar with while Nymeria had still been with her. 

Sometimes, whenever they didn’t talk, she’d listen to them, and wondered if one of them might be her. It had been at Castle Darry that she’d had to chase her away; was it so unreasonable to think that she might still be here? 

_But that’s stupid_ , she told herself, _Why would Nymeria stay here? Everything’s cold and_ _wet, and there isn’t too much to be found in the woods._ That had been a bitter lesson, she remembered, to learn just how hard it was to catch anything between these trees. 

No, Nymeria wasn’t here, of course not. 

So instead, Arya dreamt of wolves. She always was one of them herself at night, the largest and most fearsome there ever was. Running, always running, running on muddy ground beneath plants that did little to stop the rain pouring down on her back. So many of her cousins had only reluctantly followed her, and some of them not at all. 

But her goal was here, her charge, her _human_. Somewhere, between these trees. Behind them. Hidden. But _close_ , so close, and once she found the human, she wouldn’t let go again, she promised herself that. 

She would _not_ fail her again. 

She would not desert her, not leave her with another vile monster whose evil reeking filled her snout from half a day’s run away. 

She would _not_. 

So she ran. Searching, always searching. She could feel her already, just a little further, behind that tree, across this little bush of undergrowth, across this muddy track that still smelled inexplicably _right_ and familiar to her, and … 

_There._

Beneath a particularly tall-grown tree there was a man and a boy, and a pup, and \- 

Suddenly her view became all shaky and twisted, and Arya found herself ripped from sleep. 

_Not now, please, just a little longer, I was almost there -_

Then Gendry’s face appeared above her, filled with panic. 

“ _Arry!_ ”, he shouted, “wake up, Arry, we have to go, wake the others, there’s a giant wolf behind that bush there, I’ve seen it - ” 

Of all his shouting, only one word made its way into Arya’s mind. 

_Wolf._ He’d said _giant wolf._

Standing up, her sleepiness was all but forgotten, but not out of fear. For behind the growth, where Gendry’d pointed, there was - just barely visible - a shape so familiar it almost hurt to see it again. 

_It can’t be_ , she told herself, _it was just a dream -_

Yet there she was, to Arya’s joy. 

“Nymeria!”, she cried out, and the shape left its hiding behind. Arya brushed Gendry’s arms off herself and ran towards her direwolf. 

Throwing her arms around Nymeria’s head, she cried tears of joy, and hugged her again as hard as she’d done only once before, when she’d had to … 

“Nymeria, I’m sorry,” she whispered, “I’m so sorry, but I had to - they would have killed you if I hadn’t” 

And for a moment, Arya had the odd feeling that the wolf understood her, and then that she had _answered_ , not just by pressing closer, but by - 

_No, don’t be stupid, wolves can’t speak, no matter if direwolf or not._

But she didn’t really care, and just remained there for a moment longer, not noticing that Nymeria was even wetter than she was herself, that she was now _soaked_ , even more so than before … Arya didn’t care about that. 

After a while, when she let go and turned around, Arya had to fight herself to not burst out laughing. 

Gendry stood there, just a few feet away from her, and his face couldn’t have looked more confused and afraid even if he’d just witnessed her hugging one of the Others out of Old Nan’s stories. 

“Arya?”, he asked her in a voice that sounded like he wouldn’t be surprised at all if a dragon chose this moment to fly over them, “what …” 

“I told you of Nymeria, didn’t I?”, she said, still holding back laughter. 

“You’ve grown quite a bit, you know? Last time I saw you, you were the size of a kennel-dog.” 

It was true; While she wasn’t exactly the size of a pony, which according to Maester Luwin she’d reach easily when fully grown, Nymeria was now tall enough for her to hug without bending down. 

And while Gendry tried to calm Weasel down after Hot Pie hadn’t woken at all - he’d always been a heavy sleeper - Arya spent the rest of the night lying next to Nymeria, whose fur was, despite it dripping water all the time, surprisingly warm. When Arya woke up, the first thing she noticed was her as well. Her wolf. _Must look quite strange, me lying beside a giant wolf the size of a_ _young pony._ She laughed when she imagined what Yoren might think of that. He’d only ever known her to be frightened of the wolves at night. Not as greeting them as old friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, a shorter chapter, and again, ending on a hopeful note.
> 
> Well, with that buildup, I wonder what will happen in the next chapter … (evil grin).
> 
> No, it's not that bad. Really.
> 
> Though I do hope it'll be up a bit quicker than this one. Can't need over a week to write a few pages, that's slower than GRRM! (and he's justified in writing so slow, considering how amazing his writing is. I'm not)
> 
> Yes, I really just calculated that. With approximately 1000 pages per book and 5 years between them, you get around 0.54 pages per day, or about 3.8 pages per week. Yes, I'm really bored right now.


	6. Gendry 3

The Inn was beside the river. A simple two-story house, with a lower one made of grey stones, an upper one of wood and a steep thatched roof, still wet from heavy rain. Somehow, it looked peacefully. It was certainly the most remarkable and beautiful thing Gendry had seen since King’s Landing except maybe their meal at the ruined village. There was, of course, absolutely nothing special about it. _Well,_ _nothing special save the fact that it’s not burned to the ground. That’s good_ , Gendry supposed, _Might mean there’s less fighting round here._ That would be the first good news since Yoren’s death. _And maybe we’ll be faster as well._ He supposed that was good as well, but every time he thought about it, he felt more nervous about it. The moment they’d reach Riverrun. _No matter what Arya said, they’d be_ _more like to turn me away or even torture me a bit to find out what I’ve done to_ _her._ That’s how it always was with highborns. They always caused trouble, and then blamed it all on people like him. _Except Arya._ But of course it was her uncle commanding Riverrun, and it seemed less than likely to Gendry that he’d be the same. 

_Stop thinking about that. For now, you don’t even know whether or not you’ll ever see it._ _Just look at that inn._

Above its door was a painting of a man on his knees, bowing to some other man. Below it, the wooden door stood open. When they entered, a man at the other end of the room looked up. 

“Ah, welcome, you lot, to the Inn of the Kneeling Man! Good to see anyone, it’s quite hard to live as innkeep without guests.” 

_That won’t change today_ , he thought, _we don’t have any money._ He still had the bit of molten copper from the ruin, but he doubted they would get _food_ for it. Beside him, Arya seemed to think the same. They didn’t have anything. Neither of them had really wanted to go inside in the first place. It was Hot Pie who’d dragged them both in, though he didn’t seem to have any ideas on what to do now, either. Gendry suspected that he just wanted a few moments inside a proper house, even if they’d be thrown out not long after. Not that he couldn’t understand that, he’d felt the same from the moment he’d set eyes on the building. 

Still, the fact remained. They didn’t have any money, and Gendry wasn’t naïve enough to hope the inn’s keep would give them even a loaf of bread for free. 

_Well, we’ve got nothing except what that monster keeps bringing her._ No matter what Arya said, for Gendry a wolf almost the size of a small horse would always be monstrous. But accepting a giant wolf stalking them and keeping them fed was not really the hard part for him. The hardest part had been Hot Pie. He had never been exceptionally brave when something looked dangerous, which Nymeria surely did. When he’d first spotted the wolf that morning - thank the seven he hadn’t woken _him_ up first that night - , he’d run away, and it had taken them halfway to midday to find him again, and then another couple of hours to convince him everything was perfectly well. Even after that he shuddered every time he saw the wolf or Arya. And Gendry couldn’t exactly _fault_ him for it, either. The beast was certainly a frightening sight, and even he himself had trouble accepting it. After learning of Arry’s true name and place he hadn’t thought that anything could shock him that much anymore, and yet the thought of a direwolf named for some ancient queen most certainly had done exactly that. Only after Arya sent her away to hunt and be with her pack it had gotten a little better, but Hot Pie still stayed as far away from the both of them as he could. And with him, of course, Weasel. He had not thought that someone like Hot Pie could care for a small child, but oddly, he did. _Probably_ _just because he hasn’t got any other options. Arya scares him and I’m her friend,_ _however much I’m mystified by that._ Maybe he should talk more with him, but every time he tried he’d think of how he had treated Arya back with Yoren. _When did I_ _start to feel protective of her?_ , he wondered. Was this how one might think of a friend, or maybe a sister? He could not know. He had never had either of them before. 

He looked at Arya. _Seven Hells, every time I got a problem now I look at her and expect_ _her to solve it._ He wondered when that had started, too. _Though it works surprisingly well,_ _most of the time._ And it did again, this time. 

“We don’t have money”, she said, after chewing her lip, “But we’ve got meat aplenty. You’ll get half of it if you cook it for us. You agree?” 

It was true, Gendry had a huge bloody chunk of it in his hand. He didn’t exactly know what it was, but it wasn’t as if he cared. 

The man considered her for a moment. 

“I think I will. With all this war and outlaws ’round here, you never know when you’ll get something. Half the peasants have fled to Riverrun, and the other half’s either dead or hiding in caves. What do you have?” 

They showed him a rabbit Arya had caught, a squirrel Gendry had and half a deer. Or at least Arya said it was a deer. Gendry couldn’t be too sure, but then again, he’d never been outside a city before. Nymeria had killed it and eaten the other half, but there was still much left of it. The innkeep seemed surprised, but did not ask them how they had come by it. _Probably thinking we just found it in some abandoned camp._ Instead, he gave it to his wife, who’d appeared from the door behind him, taking it with her to what Gendry supposed must be the kitchen. Hot Pie followed her, probably looking if he was able to help with anything, or just happy that he’d come across something familiar. It didn’t take long till everything smelled of roasted meat. That was all it took for Gendry’s stomach to ache. _I’ve had enough raw meat, time I get something_ _warm again._ He knew he probably should not complain. He had likely eaten more meat in the last fortnight then in his whole life. Still, there was quite a difference between raw squirrel and cooked deer. He tried to remember if he’d ever eaten deer before. 

While the innkeep’s wife and Hot Pie made the food ready to eat, the three of them sat down on the nearest table. A nice table of wood, of which he could not say, dark and a bit old and not exactly flat, but all of them, even Weasel, stared at it as if it was made of solid gold. After pouring them some ale, the innkeep joined them. 

_Ale_ , Gendry thought, _real ale._ He drank deep. _Must be the best ale in the world_ , he thought. 

“You know anything about the war?”, Arya asked him. 

“Not much. Few days ago, some Lannister envoy stayed here for a night. Said he was on his way to Riverrun, he did, delivering terms or somesuch, but all I could get from him was that they hadn’t met the young wolf’s terms. Didn’t ask him any further, was busy enough trying to feed at least some of his men, he must’ve had more then a hundred of them, judging by how much they drank.” 

“A Lannister envoy?” 

“Aye, all with an endless tail of guards and more horses than any sensible man could ever have any use for. He’d been here before, too, only on his way south, though he’d had less men back then. Then, I could feed them. This time I barely had enough for the lot of them to drink. And they liked my ale, that they did. They all do.” 

“So they’re making peace now?”, Gendry asked him. 

“Would be surprised if they managed it. It’s the same in every war. They all pass through here, but there’s never any peace coming from it. And believe me, lads, I’ve seen enough envoys in my life to’ve learnt that by now. Wars end with one side dead, like with King Aerys, not with all of them envoys. Especially not now, what with both sides havin’ kings.” 

“Both sides have kings?” 

“Aye, they have. More than that, even. There’s King Joffrey, the son-or-not o’ good old King Robert. Then there’s his uncle Renly, who’s declared himself king as well. That much I knew when it all started. Then that envoy I told you of came through for the first time and told me there’s a northern King now too, which got me thinkin’ whether I should change that paintin’ o’ the wall there, and then he came through a second time and told me all o’ King’s Landing shivered from fear o’ some other King I can’t even remember. Was named Stannis or some such. Most like, he’ll come through a third time and tell me of another one.” 

“There’s a northern king?”, Arya asked him, like she did not quite believe him. Only then did he notice what that might mean. It had been so _easy_ to forget all this on the road. 

“Aye, some Stark King. King o’ the north or something the like. The one whose father’s head was chopped of. Can’t remember why. Robb, I think his name was, for old King Robert. If he’s half as drunk he might even win, and then I’ll be making a fortune just on that. Might die as a wealthy man, I’d like that. Don’t think he will, though. Looks too much like the tragic hero, avenging his father. Rhaegar once did that, too, and then Robert, and look what happened to them.” 

“King Robert won”, he could not help but point out. 

“And? Might be he won, but that girl he went to war for died. Doesn’t look too happy to me. No, it’s more like he dies, and than the rest will die as well. Mark my words, boys, in a war with two sides one dies, and in one with more than two, it’s lucky when someone survives at all. Last time there’d been more than one King, it only ever ended when Ser Barristan killed the last of the Blackfyres, not with them _talking_. By the way, you know what happened to him? Thought he might’ve shown up by now, too. Would have been nice. Last time he was here I missed him, had been out for the day, seeing if there was any meat to come by somewhere. That was just after the Trident, and then I came home to my wife saying Barristan the Bold had been here. Hoped I might get a second chance on that one, you think I will?” 

He thought he might let Arya answer this one; she was the highborn, after all, and probably knew more than he did. Yet when he looked at her he saw her face betraying anger if he had ever seen it. _He just said her brother will die_ , he realized, and wondered how he would feel about that, if he had one. _I should say something, before she stabs_ _him._

“Word in King’s Landing was that King Joffrey had thrown him out, for letting his father die. Don’t think he’ll be coming through anytime soon. Anyways, how do you live, with all the fighting round here?”, Gendry asked the man. 

“Ah, I’ll live on, without a king. They have never done me any good with all their fighting. But the envoys, I like them. They might not bring peace, but they do have good coin. That’s what I need to live, not _kings_.” He spat on the ground, then laughed as if he had made some funny joke. “What’ll become o’ me? I’ll stay here, what else? Maybe the envoy comes a third time, and I’ll live on his money a little longer.” 

“You don’t want to go, then?”, Arya asked him, her voice surprisingly calm, “Not afraid they’ll burn your inn down, like they did with all the others?” 

“Nah. Listen, boy, I’ve stayed here my entire life. Even when King Robert fought dragons and all the lands ’round here were burning even more than they’re now. I’ll not go now. I’ve never left this place, and if that’s the reason I die, so be it!” He laughed again, and drank his ale. 

Gendry drank, too, and when he looked beside him, Arya did too. Weasel was sitting on her lap, and she tried to get her drink it. Weasel’s face became a warped expression of dislike, and she spit it out again all over Arya’s legs. Gendry couldn’t help but laugh, and soon Arya herself joined in as well. Still, she looked as if she was not quite there at all, and her laugh never reached her eyes. Gendry could not fault her. _Her_ _brother’s a king, and the man who told her of it believes he’ll die._ Then another thought occurred to him. _If her brother’s a king, does that makes her a princess?_ He wondered if she would like being one. She said she was no lady, and most times he believed her, but a _princess_? That made her even higher, and him even more below her. 

_She certainly doesn’t have the look of one, or the manners. Especially the manners._ In fact, he noticed there was less ale left in her cup than in his own. 

“Aren’t you a bit young for drinking that fast?”, he asked her, “And used to finer stuff as well?” 

He liked to tease her, to make her call him or her high birth stupid. That especially. She did not disappoint him. 

“Shut up, stupid! I just like the way it tastes, much better than the dirty water we’ve had to drink. And my stupid sister is the one for wine, not me.” 

_That’s how I like her. All dirty and insulting and on her way getting as drunk as the_ _king._

“How far is it to Riverrun?”, she asked the innkeep now. 

“Two or three days on a horse. But I wouldn’t go there. Lord Tully might let you in, but it seems to me the castle is under siege now more often than not. You don’t want to be in a castle under siege, do you?” 

“Riverrun’s under siege?” 

“Did I say that? It was besieged not long ago, aye, and like as not it’ll be again soon enough.” 

“But it’s not now?” 

“Not that I know of.” 

“How long will it take to reach it on foot?” 

“Longer than three days, I’d think.” When she looked confused by that, he added “Never been there. And I don’t ask the men coming through here too much, they don’t like that. No point in having a fine inn if nobody likes it.” 

His wife called something from the the other room, and he left them there. 

“I’ll bring you your meat”, he said 

“Gendry?”, Arya asked him once the man was gone, “Do you think he has a horse?” 

There had been a stable outside, he recalled, and he _had_ heard horses inside. “I’d think so” 

“You think we could get one?” 

“And how would you want to do that?” _Don’t tell me you want to steal it_ , he pleaded, _I_ _could not steal a thing if my life depended one it_. He tried to tell himself not to be stupid, that he wasn’t that young boy in King’s Landing anymore. It did not work. _If I ever see you_ _again, they’ll find you in Flea Bottom, in the meat shops!_ , the shouting still echoed in his head, _Or might be I’ll be giving you to the goldcloaks, and they’ll put you in one of these_ _black cells!_

“We’d give him more meat”, Arya suggested. 

“And why would he agree to that?” 

“He just said that he won’t go anywhere, and that it was hard to get anything these days. So why should he need a horse?” 

Gendry heard a door opening; the innkeep was coming back, helping Hot Pie with plates of wonderfully smelling cooked meat. The boy seemed the happiest that Gendry had ever seen him. 

“Leave that to me”, he told Arya, enjoying the expression of surprise on her face. Gendry normally wasn’t one to talk very much, but if he’d learned anything about people from Master Mott, it was how to haggle with them. Mott had been a master in it. 

It was hard to concentrate on it while all he wanted was to wolf his meat down, but he managed it in the end, pointing out how the innkeep would not need horses since he was not going anywhere, that he had to feed the horses, that they would become thinner and thinner over time. Most like, he said, with the rains here they’d get stuck anyways, and if he ever tried to they’d probably no use at all. It helped that unlike the man, he had not drunken much ale, though he desperately hoped that not everything he told him was right or they’d be of no use to them, either. 

In the end, he got them a room for the night and a promise of a horse for a quarter of its weight in meat. He hoped Nymeria could hunt fast enough. _Don’t_ _be stupid, if the wolf can kill several deer per day, you’ve got nothing to worry_ _about._

When they’d finished eating it was just past noon, and they’d have time to get more than enough meat. She and Gendry went outside again, though she told him he was not needed. 

“You make too much noise, stupid”, she complained, “If you’d be as quiet as a shadow, I wouldn’t say anything. But you’ll just scare everything of.” 

Then they were inside the woods again, well hidden from view. He always liked being alone with Arya. He was the only one who knew her secret, and it made him feel special for the first time in his life. Especially now, when that secret had grown even bigger. 

“Apologies, princess.” 

Arya stopped dead on her feet. 

“ _What did you say?_ ” 

The sight of her would have been enough to make most people back down, but he wasn’t called _the Bull_ for nothing. 

“Well if your brother’s a king, you’re a princess, aren’t you?” He tried to make it sound as if it was not big deal to him, thought he doubted he’d succeeded. He was a smith, after all, and not an actor. 

“Oh”, she said, like she had not even considered that, “I - err - I’m not - I mean - I can’t be - ” 

“A princess?”, he suggested, and she nodded. 

“What use am I as a princess?” 

Gendry considered a moment, then said, “You know, I’ve never heard of a fighting lady before, but there’s plenty of tales about warrior princesses.” 

“That’s stupid, that’s just _stories_!”, she told him, yet he could see that it _did_ cheer her up a bit. 

“Of course, princess.” 

“ _Stop_ that!” 

“Why? You only said not to call you m’lady. There was never any talk about calling you princess.” 

She gave something of a furious outcry, then turned and left him behind. 

“Hey, wait Arya!”, he called after her, “Right, fine, I’ll stop calling you that.” 

She did not seem to care. Gendry sighed and followed her. 

“Arya! Where’re you going?” 

“To find meat.” 

“You really think that’s a good idea? To get us horses? You know you’re the only one who’s ever sit on one, Arya?”, he asked her, and finally she stopped and turned back to him. 

_As long as you don’t talk about her being highborn, she could be just another child. Well,_ _no ordinary child, but still._

“So? Maybe it’s time to change that?” 

“And then? We’ll get one horse, two at most, and that’s still one two few.” 

“I could ride with you, teaching you how to do it. And if that doesn’t work …”, she got closer to him “I still have Nymeria.” 

“Nymeria?”, he said, surprised and a little frightened, “You can ride on _her?_ ”, he asked her, looking at the huge wolf who’d just appeared between the trees. No that he thought of it, she was not _that_ mush smaller than a pony. _A very, very fast pony._ Gendry did not doubt the direwolf could outrun every horse, even the lordly ones that cost what he’d earn in his entire life. 

“It was hard when I first tried it, since she’s not a horse. She normally doesn’t like having someone on her back. But when she accepts it, it’s no harder than riding a horse. Easier, even. She understands me much better than a horse could.” 

_That’s true_ , he supposed. He had noticed the strange understanding between them. Arya could say something to the wolf and she would respond accordingly, not like a dog who’d been trained to react to certain words but more as if she truly understood what Arya said. And it was the same the other way round, too, as Arya always seemed to know what Nymeria was trying to say. It frightened him a bit, but then again, this was _Arya_. He somehow thought he shouldn’t be so surprised to learn she had kept a giant wolf as a pet. 

That didn’t stop him from being nervous, though. While it had been _days_ since he’d first seen her he still had to suppress his fear every time he saw her. She just looked too monstrous, with these golden eyes that seemed to pierce right into his soul. 

He left the wolf-handling to Arya. He wondered how she did it, but it did not take her more time than she might need to say _We need meat to buy a horse, can you get it_ _for us?_ , and Nymeria was on her way, soon disappeared into the forest, and the two of them were alone. Only then did he start to wonder what they’d do all the time. 

Obviously Arya had something in mind, judging by the way she held her sword. 

“You’d like to practice a bit?” 

He thought he probably shouldn’t be so happy when a highborn offered to spar with him. Sparring with highborns was seldom safe or without consequences, but every time she actually _asked_ him, he could not help himself. 

It was not long before she had her sword at his throat, something that still bugged him every time that happened. But he wasn’t _completely_ useless, and their second fight ended with Arya pinned to the ground, both her tiny wrists in one of his hands. 

“You’re cheating!”, she accused him, “You’re supposed to fight with your sword, not holding me down like this.” 

Gendry could not help but laugh and wonder who else would say he cheated while in this situation. _Well, certainly not Hot Pie._ The boy had not said much to any of them in the past few days, but right now Gendry did not care about him at all. 

He held his sword at her throat, careful not to cut herself. 

“You’re dead Arya”, he said, “Happy now?” 

“At least you’ve got the sword there. Right, fine, I’m dead. Now, can we start over or do you want to pin me down like this all day?” 

He chuckled, let her go and charged again. 

By the time Nymeria returned to them, they were both exhausted, even dirtier than they’d been before, and Gendry thought he had a scratch somewhere at his neck. _Fuck. We_ _should have used sticks again._ Arya always insisted they use their real swords to make it feel more accurate, but he only worried about hurting her. Though he did not suppose Arya was as afraid of drawing blood as he was, not even if it was her own. 

He had her almost on the ground again when he was thrown right off her and found himself looking into a pair of golden eyes and a monstrous mouth still dripping with blood. 

“Get off him, Nymeria! You’re a wolf, you _can’t_ spar with men!” 

He had never been so thankful to hear her voice, or to feel her wolf responding to it. 

Nymeria got off him. 

“Silly wolf”, Arya said, “men don’t like to play with wolves. They never have a chance.” 

Nymeria looked at her as id she wasn’t really happy with that. 

Gendry hoped Nymeria had really only wanted to play with them. _And not to rip my_ _throat for leaving her mistress with a scratch._ The thought reminded him of what her family might say when they reached that. If anything, he felt even more dread at the prospect. 

“Are you going to stare into the woods all day?”, Arya ranted at him, “Can’t you help me with this?” 

Turning around, he saw that Arya was struggling to cut something like a deer in two with that little Needle of hers. He wasn’t exactly an expert on knives - that had been Erryk’s job, back at the forge - but even he knew that it was more like she broke the blade than the meat. 

He let her try a bit more, until she looked at him rather accusatory, then went over to her and just cut it in half. 

Arya did nothing for a moment, then shrugged, and said something like “only because you’re stronger than me.” 

They hid the meat beneath a hedge and trusted Nymeria to not eat it during the night. It would be better if they’d show him all together tomorrow, he’d told her, so the innkeep would be more surprised and impressed about how much it really was. 

They spent the rest of the day outside, cutting and hiding whatever bits of meat the wolves got them, and sparring when there was nothing to do. Most times, Arya was still to fast for him. 

They had a _lot_ of meat, more than they could ever hope to use or even take with them, and Gendry wondered where exactly the wolves had caught all this. He also wondered what the innkeep would think when he saw this. _That one of use is some kind of sorcerer,_ _probably._

Worse, Gendry wasn’t even sure if Arya was not, with the way she communicated with that beast. 

_It doesn’t matter. She’ll be at Riverrun in a few day’s time._ He was not so sure about himself. It had been so easy to forget all this in the wild. That Arya _was_ highborn, no matter how she behaved. Should he go with her? He would be back at serving someone he hardly knew, then. And while Gendry _was_ longing to be in a forge again, he was not so sure about serving. _Would it be any different there than in King’s Landing?_ He had been surprised and a bit shocked about joining the Night’s Watch, yet when he had gotten used to the idea, he thought it would not be so bad. _It’s a brotherhood. There’s still some lord_ _commanding, but at least they are brothers, and they choose the commander, too._ He wondered what that would be like, to have a brother. Like it was with Arya, protecting one another? 

What _would_ happen if he went with Arya? Would they even still be friends? He’d told her they could not be friends, had wanted to warn her they might have to part. _You’d think_ _I’d forget you? Then you’re stupid._ But what if she truly wouldn’t forget him? Gendry couldn’t really imagine her lordly family would be fine with them being friends. 

_They’d hate her for being friends with me, and me for accepting it._ No, he thought, he had to leave before they reached Riverrun. Then … maybe he could still go to the Wall. The idea pained him more than he had expected. He did not want to part from her. 

Gendry sighed, and followed Arya back inside. 

The room the meat had bought them had only two beds. Given that they slept near each other every night, it really shouldn’t be a problem, but still. He had just thought about what Arya’s family would say to him, and somehow he thought it would be bad if they learned they’d shared a bed. Not that Arya saw any problem there, of course. She just laid herself beside him, and there was nothing he could’ve said without making Hot Pie more suspicious than he already was. 

_You should enjoy being near her_ , he told himself, _talking to her, laying beside her, even_ _just looking at her._ He wouldn’t have any opportunity for that much longer. _I’m_ _going to miss her_ , he realised, _badly. The only highborn who ever cared for me._ If anyone had told him he would have a highborn girl protecting and teaching him how to survive a year ago, he would’ve laughed right in their faces. _No one_ _cares for me. I’m just a bastard. Another no one, like a thousand others even if I_ _should become the best blacksmith in the world._ A year ago, he’d hated that, yet now he sometimes found himself wishing back, in a time before everything had become so complicated. Though he didn’t really want to not be friends with Arya, either. 

But he could not be her friend. He _must not_ be her friend. Not even if she wanted him to. No matter how much he wanted to be, Gendry knew he would condemn her if he was. And he didn’t want that. Not ever. He was just a bastard, his friendship was not worthy to alienate her from her family. 

Beside him, Arya struggled in her sleep, like her wolves outside. She even howled silently, sometimes. He should really sleep now, too, and yet all he could do was to lie awake and thinking of what would happen on the morrow. _If we part here, I wouldn’t even have to ride._ _Seven hells, I’ve got no idea how to ride a horse._

He knew he should long be asleep, but that did not come easily to him that night. 

The next day was even worse than he thought. It did not start out too bad, to be sure. They broke their fasts on what was left from the day before. Cold rabbit, mostly, but _cooked_ cold rabbit. Gendry decided he liked that much better than raw cold rabbit. He was about to tell Arya that they would have to part their ways now, when Hot Pie announced he’d stay at the inn. 

“I’ve been talkin’ to the innkeep yesterday, and to his wife, during cooking and later, when you were outside. I don’t know where you’re goin’. But I just want a place to live, and not one somewhere beneath a wet damp tree. And well … they offered to let me stay. Well, me and Weasel. She’s just slowin’ you down anyways, it’ll be better for her with me here.” 

Arya did not say anything, but it was clear she was upset. He wasn’t highborn, and he’d never really had friends or companions. Come to think of it, he and Hot Pie weren’t really _friends_ , were they? Still, you didn’t just _leave_ the girl who kept you alive for a more than a fortnight either. Then he remembered what he himself intended to do, and resolved to at least give her a warning beforehand. 

Before he could say a thing, Arya had already stomped out of the room and outside. Without a look back at Hot Pie, he followed her. 

Gendry found her where they’d hidden the deer the day before, next to her giant wolf. _She’s hugging it_ , he realised, _her wolf comforts her more than I ever could._ There _was_ something strange about the relationship between the two. 

“Arya?”, he said, sitting next to her, keeping as much distance as possible from the beast. When she didn’t answer, he placed an arm around her. He’d never really done that before, placing an arm around someone, hugging someone, but he felt this wasn’t really the right time to ponder about that, not when she was shaking underneath it. _She’s almost crying._ Now that was strange, imagining her crying. Furious, shouting, lashing out, yes, but crying? Gendry had never seen her like this before. Not when Lommy had bullied her, not when they found Yoren’s body. Not when they passed burned villages and not even when Lommy begged her for death. 

_Maybe it’s that while Lommy didn’t really have a choice, Hot Pie just left willingly._

Then he felt even more ashamed of himself, but what was there to help it? 

“Arya?”, he asked her again. 

“Gendry?” She looked up at him. “Promise me you’ll never leave me like that?” 

“I - ” _I won’t_ , he wanted to say, truly did, but … _If I stay, her family will hate her, they’ll_ _hate me, they’d -_

“Gendry?” 

“I - ” 

“You want to leave me too, don’t you?” 

“No!”, he said, before he could stop himself, “I don’t want to leave you.” 

The look on her face was full of disbelief. “Then why can’t you just promise me?” 

It made no sense to hold it from her. Not anymore. So he told her. Everything. He had wanted to anyways. “Because I have … I have to leave you. Your family … They’d hate me. They’d hate you for befriending me. And - and I couldn’t be your friend there. I’ve told you that. You wouldn’t be my friend. You’d be m’lady.” 

If anything, that look of disbelief only became stronger. 

“Oh just shut up! If you believe that, you’re stupid. Even stupider then I thought. I told you that I don’t care. That you would not stop being my friend because everyone wants to turn me into a fucking _Lady!_ ” 

“But - ” 

“But what?” 

“They’ll hate you! After you’ve just come back you’d make them hate you!” 

She snorted. “You know, I think they’d be more surprised if don’t show up with a friend who’s a bastard. They won’t like it, but they’ll accept it. And if they don’t and if they mistreat you, I swear I’ll fight for you.” 

“You’d - ” 

“I would. You’re my friend, they won’t be able to just take that away. And you help your friends, remember? You don’t leave them.” 

He moved closer to her, his fear of the direwolf forgotten. 

“Arya …” _I can’t say how I deserved that. I’m just a bastard. And you just_ _… care about me._ _And I don’t know how to thank you for that._

He couldn’t say that, of course, not loud. It was hard enough to admit it to himself. 

“Now, you promise to stay with me?” 

_You don’t leave your friends_. 

“Yes.” 

She looked at him, and he was sure that ever since he had met her, she had never looked happier. 

_Am I truly worth so much, to make her face look like that?_

Gendry had spent his life hating highborns, and now this one looked at him as if he was the most important person in all of Westeros. He wondered when that had happened. Although, when he tried to think who might be most important for him in turn, he knew there was only one possible answer. 

They retrieved the meat they had caught yesterday. It was enough for one horse, he supposed, and one would be enough now. 

“Here, you have your meat. We’ll get a horse now? Only need one now.” 

The man stared at it in a way Gendry could not even begin to describe. “To be honest”, he admitted, “I really thought you were joking, had just found what you had yesterday in some abandoned camp. I’ve given you my word, though, so you’ll get your horse. And I’ll just refuse to ask where you’ve got the meat.” 

Arya choose the horse, as he didn’t know the first thing about horses. It was already saddled, and after he managed to climb on its back - with Arya’s help - and she followed after him, much more graceful than he could ever hope to be, they looked at the inn for a last time and rode off into the woods. 

Gendry thought he probably should not be so thankful that Arya had crushed his view of the world. Again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not posting a chapter last week, wasn't home and didn't have exactly the best access to the internet.
> 
> Although I did manage to write and post a quick _Harry Potter_ fic (with Ginny/Luna). I stopped after that and noticing how incredibly hard it is to write longer stories on a phone keyboard. Also, spent waay too much time reading Neil Gaiman's _American Gods_. In case you don't know who he is, just go to his website and read the short stories he's published there, or read his _[Other People](http://holdinghandswithhades.edublogs.org/seven-deadly-sins-part-7-the-others-by-neil-gaiman/)_ in case you like something that's a bit more horror. Though to be fair, most of what he does is somewhere between absurd, horror and cosmic horror, with this one it's just more obvious.
> 
> So, well, this one's a bit longer again (or at least longer than the last two) and marks something like the end of the first part of this story, since Hot Pie and Weasel left. They'll eventually turn up again, but for now they stay at the inn (which, incidentally, is the same inn where Hot Pie stays in canon, before the innkeep was killed and it taken over by Sharna and her husband). It's something of a tense chapter, so much happening in this one, and I really hope I managed to do it convincingly.


	7. Arya 4

By now, Arya was almost sure the woods were cursed. At the inn, the man had said it would take them only a day, or two at most, to get to Riverrun, but now the second day had almost come to its end and they’d spied neither a castle nor outriders or just _anything_. Only the woods on one side, and the river on the other. And of course, they had to slow down again and again, even stop for what felt like hours because their horse could not live on thin air. _Or Nymeria’s meat_. No, _of course_ the stupid horse had to eat grass or vegetables, not meat. She’d curse the gods about this, old and new, but then she remembered what her mother would say to that if she ever learnt of that, and of all the things she’d already done, and just barely managed to stop herself from doing it. 

If she’d thought endlessly about the rain before they’d come across the inn, than now she was spending even more time wondering for how long these woods could possibly go on. 

Arya knew they were faster with the horse, not slower, she wasn’t _stupid_ , but it still felt as if they were. 

Though Gendry thought quite different, she’d learned. 

Riding a horse had always been fun to her, something she’d spend hours trying to convince her mother to let her do, and then doing it anyways when she didn’t allow it. Hullen, her father’s master of horse, had used to say she rode like a northerner, as good as any southern knight. But Gendry, of course, had never had any lessons on how to ride, or even a horse to teach himself, and half the time he was clinging to her as if he feared he might fall off at any moment. 

_As if anyone could just fall of a horse at this speed._

Well, there was nothing to help it. They already were slow enough, going even _slower_ wasn’t really an option to Arya, and she was the one with the reins in her hands. 

Still, she supposed she _did_ feel a bit bad for Gendry, especially when they were forced to make stop for the night again, and she saw the expression of relief on his very-slightly-green face. 

_He’s stupid enough to get seasick on a horse_ , she supposed, _he was stupid enough that he_ _thought he’d have to leave me, after all_. 

It wasn’t that she couldn’t understand his being a bit fearful about it - she was the same, with Robb being King now and all that. 

_And with me having killed, and Sansa left behind_ , though it was hard to admit that, even to herself. 

No, it wasn’t that. She just found herself unable to understand how he’d come to think he _had_ to leave her, or that her mother would hate her because of _him_. Arya supposed that Lady Catelyn _did_ have a lot of reasons to hate her, but he really shouldn’t be one of them. 

_Well, unless he_ does _manage to fall off the horse, drags me down with him and kills us_ _both._

The thought was so absurd she had to laugh, just a little, but she knew he’d notice it all the same. 

Not long afterwards, when the had properly ended and the sun started to disappear behind endless woods and they’d done their best to tie the horse to a particularly strong-looking branch so it wouldn’t run off, but still had ample grass to reach they sat down, eating what the innkeep had been kind enough to let them take with them on their way. 

Rabbit again, as it had been before the inn, too, but now it was _cooked_ , and that was infinitely better than anything else Arya could imagine right now, even if it was cold. 

While eating, she idly wondered whether Hot Pie had been the one to cook it, and what he might be doing right now, back at the inn. For some reason he hadn’t wanted to go to Riverrun, even though he could’ve worked there, too, and though the betrayal still stung she couldn’t help but hope he’d like it where he was now. 

Then she realized that she’d never really told him they’d go to Riverrun, and that of course he didn’t know who she was and that she’d be able to get him work, and thought that maybe it wasn’t all his fault. How was he supposed to know he’d find work at Riverrun, without her telling him? 

Gendry had known, of course, though he’d still tried to leave her. Was that something about her, that people didn’t want to be with her anymore, not really? Maybe because of the Stableboy she’d killed, or maybe because of Mycah, who’d died because of her? Did they somehow stick to her, could other people see that she was a killer? 

_That’s stupid_ , she told herself, but still the thought wouldn’t go away. 

Thankfully, Gendry interrupted her. He had that about him, she’d noticed: he’d somehow always manage to say something to rip her from her thoughts whenever they got all gloomy. 

“You know, I hope the innkeep’s right, and we’ll be there in a day, or two at most. Nothin’ gainst you or your riding, but I wouldn’t think I’d survive it too long.” 

Half of her wanted to snap that it wasn’t her fault, he was just too stupid to properly hold himself up, but mostly she was just thankful that he’d started talking, and soon their conversation served to end her worries for the moment and drifted to other things. Tired as she was, she’d never be too sleepy to trade stories with Gendry, though she sometimes wondered what they’d do if they ever ran out of them. Already, she’d taken to retelling some of Old Nan’s stories she’d liked, but of course he’d never had someone to tell him stories when he was sick and had to stay inside for days on end, or when he just didn’t want to talk to anyone. 

She’d just finished recounting the deeds of Queen Nymeria of the Rhoynar - she’d read them so often, and replayed them so often with Jon in the Broken Tower with their little stone-armies that she knew every battle that Nymeria had ever fought in and every place she’d visited, before landing in Dorne - and now it was his turn. That was how they always did it, after that first time when she’d just told him everything at once: He’d tell her a story, and once finished, she’d tell him one in turn. 

This time, though, he started different, not with the usual _you know, when I hadn’t yet_ _been an apprentice smith_ _…_

“Listen”, he began instead, “I … ahm … I probably should’ve told you this already. Really, I should’ve when you told me who you are, but … I never really felt it fit. Don’t think it fits now, either, but in case we arrive tomorrow, and I don’t know what happens then, well … ” - Arya had half a mind to tell him to not be stupid, that nothing would change even if they _did_ arrive the next day, they’d trade stories all the same - but then she’d have to interrupt him, and it had become one of their unspoken rules that they wouldn’t interrupt each other during stories, questions were for later \- “you really should now it, I think. While I was with Master Mott … actually just a few weeks ago, though it doesn’t really feel like that, I … well - I met your father.” 

For half a second Arya was confused, thought she must’ve misunderstood him, but then realized that she hadn’t, which only served to deepen her astonishment. She was on the brink of just bursting out a question, and only managed to stop herself at the last moment. 

“He came, one day, to the forge. I didn’t really notice, of course, not at first, he was with Master Mott out in the front. That never was anything unusual, loads of lords and knights came by there every day. I’ve already told you of Thoros and his flaming sword, haven’t I?” 

Excitement flooded through her, and a little fearfulness, and while she normally enjoyed Gendry’s slowness while narrating, she suddenly felt the urge to shout that she already knew of Thoros, _of course she did, and why can’t you just tell me about_ _father_ _…_ It took everything she’d learned from Syrio about controlling herself not to. 

“Well, point is, was nothing really unusual, not at first, but then he, Master Mott, that is, suddenly lead him to the forge, behind the selling-room, and then Lord Stark – well, your father – said he wanted to talk to me, though first he had a look at my work, you know, at the bull’s head helmet, said something of it being fine work. Well, it was a bit rough round the edges, and still is, but … Anyway, I kind of feared he meant to take it with him, but when I told him I wouldn’t want to sell it, he said that was all right, though Master Mott threw a frenzy ’bout it. After that, he asked me ’bout Lord Arryn.” 

Confusion must have shown on her face, for Gendry stopped himself, looked unsure for a moment, then continued. 

“Oh, sorry, I haven’t old you of him yet, either, have I? Well, basically he just came to the forge one day, same as your father, more or less, though he had another one with him. Lord Stannis, I think his name was, the one with the ships, but I’m not sure. Well, he never said anything. Lord Arryn though, he was the hand, of course, before he died, and he - well I suppose he asked me ’bout my mother, ’bout everything I can still remember of her. So I told him, of her yellow hair, and of the songs she used to sing to me - well, I told him that there were songs, I don’t remember which ones - and then he left again, while the other one, Stannis, yes, I think that was actually his name, he just stood in the back and stared at me like some … well, like someone he’d didn’t really like much, though I never learnt why.” 

Arya couldn’t help but think that he’d stopped himself there, that he’d wanted to say something else first, but she didn’t really care. Not now, not when he was telling him of her father. 

“Anyway, I told your father of Lord Arryn, and then asked me the same things, so I told him, too. Well, I’d kind of expected that, when I’d first seen him. There’s only so much that’s interesting ’bout a bastard boy from the streets, though I can’t for the life of me guess what it might be. But then he did something … well … _weird_. Your father, I mean. He just asked me to look into his eyes - I hadn’t done that, Master Mott always said you shouldn’t look highborns in the eye, they didn’t like that - ” 

Any other time, Arya would’ve wondered if that was why he hadn’t really looked at her, the first few days after she’d told him who she was, but now that thought didn’t even cross her mind. 

“Actually, he didn’t really _ask_ , it was more like a command, so well, I did, and then he looked at me all strangely as if I’m a ghost and just walks out. Master Mott later told me that outside he’d mentioned that should I ever want to fight with a sword rather than forge one I could go to him, he’d take me, as a guard or something, and I’d wondered ’bout that for a while, thought maybe it had something to do why someone had paid my apprentice fee, but … well … Master Mott just gave me to the Night’s Watch later.” 

Grateful for not mentioning her father’s death, it took her a moment to notice he’d finished talking. 

Then realization hit her, and all thoughts of not saying anything or of telling him a story were forgotten. 

_Why would father want to look in his eyes? What is it that’s so important of Gendry?_ She’d long since concluded that there was _something_ about him that no one, not even he himself, really knew about. As he himself just said, _someone_ had paid for him being at the forge, and she couldn’t help but think there was something not quite right about all this. 

People didn’t just pay for the apprenticeship of random bastards living on streets, there was some secret about Gendry, she was sure of it. But how to find out? 

Arya was thoughtful for a moment, then had an idea. 

“Gendry? My father must’ve recognized something about you when he did that, or at least he’d hoped to, so … well, would you just look at me? Maybe, if he saw something, I’ll see it as well.” 

His face an expression of confusion, and maybe anxiety, he turned his head towards her and she tried to find something she’d failed to see before. 

There just _had_ to be something, she knew it. 

Though of course she had no idea what to search for. He had the same face he’d always had, the same piercing blue eyes, the same mop of ink-black hair hanging around it, the same nose, the same chin and cheeks she always saw when she looked at him. 

But she remembered Syrio, how he’d told her of the trick of not just _looking_ , but truly _seeing_. 

Was there anyone else she knew, who might look like him? She couldn’t imagine why that might be important, but there wasn’t anything better that occurred to her, either. 

_Black hair_ _…_

It didn’t seem remarkable, really, but now that she thought of it, there weren’t that many people she knew with hair that black. Her father’s had been dark, of course, same as Uncle Benjen’s and her own, but not anywhere near _this_ dark. Who else? No one of the north, she concluded, even Jory’d had dark brown hair, not black. But in King’s Landing had been so many people, and most of them she’d never really paid any attention to … 

The King had had black hair, of course, but she couldn’t recall the colour of his eyes, and he’d been to fat to really make his face out. Idly she wondered what hair Varys might have; he’d been one of the few to truly stick out in the Red Keep, but he’d always shaved his head. All of the Lannisters were blond-haired, of course, and as far as she remembered the Hound’s, while dark, had been brown rather than black. 

_Come on! There should be more people you remember!_

Thinking back to when Ser Barristan had welcomed them on the Kingsroad, she remembered his white hair, and … 

“Lord Renly.” She hadn’t really seen him often, but there was no way of missing him, with the way he dressed. 

“What?” 

If anything, the confusion on Gendry’s face had only deepened. 

“Lord Renly. You look exactly like Lord Renly.” 

He got his painful-looking thinking-face for a moment, then asked “You think I’m his bastard or something?” 

No, that couldn’t be right, now that she thought of it. Her impression of Lord Renly had been one of a young man, younger than her father or Jory, only slightly older than Theon, dressed as if he tried to outshine Sansa. Gendry was Robb’s age, or near enough to make no difference. 

_He’s to young to have fathered Gendry_ _…_

“No. But maybe … maybe one of his brothers. You said Stannis was with there, together with Lord Arryn, didn’t you?” 

Though the more she thought of it, the less sense that made. Father hadn’t often talked about other lords, but sometimes he’d add something to Maester Luwin’s lessons. 

“No, he’s not it either, father always said he was honourable. If he’d had bastard, he’d raised him himself, like father did with Jon.” 

“But that only leaves the King,” Gendry told her, sounding astonished of his own words. 

“Yes …” 

Arya wondered if he could really be the King’s bastard. It would certainly explain a few things. The lords had all come to him because he was King Robert’s bastard, not because he was Gendry. Someone had paid his apprentice fee. But there was no reason why the Queen would want him dead or why her father would die just because he knew of Gendry’s parentage. _I’m still missing something. There has to be something else_ _…_ But what? It must’ve been dangerous, if so many people died because of it. Her father had died because of it. 

She’d never been so frustrated with not knowing something. It felt as if it was right there, she’d only have to take it, and she’d know why they had killed her father … And yet it eluded her. 

_What did father say, before Joffrey demanded his head?_

It was hard to remember; all that had stuck in her mind was the crowd, and the cheering at her father’s death, and Yoren finding her and cutting her hair off. 

“Gendry?” _Maybe he’ll know._

It was only then that she noticed the look on his face. It wasn’t his thinking-face anymore, more like … pain, and anger, and maybe a little fear. He didn’t give any indication that he’d heard her. 

“Gendry?”, she called him again, but he didn’t seem to notice. 

After trying one more time, she went over to him and placed herself beside him. 

“What’s wrong with you now?” 

Slowly, he looked up at her. For some reason, Arya could see _fear_ in his eyes, and anger, more than she’d ever seen before in them. And at the same time, he somehow managed to look as if he was going to cry. 

“You want ’o know wha’s wrong? I’m a bastard. Worse, I’m the bastard of an _old_ _disgusting drunken fool who also was the king_. That’s _wrong_. No one ever cares about me, I know that, I’m fine with that, I don’t care about them either. Just … I’d hoped there was something about me, anything, but turns out this isn’t really ’bout me, just ’bout who fucked my mother years ago, never me. I’m just … nothing …” 

“Shut up, Gendry”, she snapped at him, suddenly angry herself, though she didn’t really know whom it was about, only that it wasn’t really Gendry, “ _You_ are not nothing. I thought I told you that already, when you insisted on m’ladying me. You’re Gendry, same as I’m Arya. You hear me? They’ll all talk about it, but that’s not important, because it isn’t true what they say, not really. You’re still just Gendry, same as you always were, no matter that you’re the King’s bastard.” 

Looking at him, she thought he might almost have managed a small smile, even though he still looked doubtful. _Stupid!_

“No, wait. You’re not the King’s bastard, you’re just a stupid bullheaded bastard smith!” 

He laughed, startled. Then she hugged him, the way she’d used to hug Jon whenever her mother or Sansa had been mean to him. She didn’t really knew if that was right in this kind of situation. She’d never been very good with people, after all, but she supposed that since he’d hugged her when Hot Pie left, that it probably wasn’t all too wrong. 

“Though I don’t, and no one else should, care about the _bastard_ thing.” 

For his part, Gendry seemed to surprised to do anything. 

“Arya …” 

She drew him tighter. 

“And you’re my friend.” 

They stayed like this for a long time. It just felt so good to have someone to hug again, a bit like Jon. She’d missed that, and she suspected that Gendry had too. Well, Jon wasn’t there, and neither was his mother, but she supposed they still had each other. 

Half of her feared he’d ruin it again by saying that he wouldn’t be able to stay with her in Riverrun, and when he didn’t she found herself thanking all the Gods she’d ever heard of. 

Then suddenly she had to laugh, at her hugging Gendry in the middle of this miserable forest, at her father and the Lords Stannis and Arryn, at how easy it had been to figure everything out in the end. She even laughed at King Robert, who’d never learnt that he’d had a much better son than Joffrey ever would. 

It didn’t take long for Gendry to join in, even though he had probably no idea why she was laughing in the first place, and together they laughed, _really_ laughed, and Arya was surprised how good it felt, after so many weeks spent without it, to be careless, just for a moment, to not think about how long the way would be or in which direction Riverrun might be. 

Not much later, she fell asleep in Gendry’s arms, and dreamt of wolves, and of home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huh. This one took me longer than expected, but I've still got it finished in time. It's surprisingly long actually, I'd expected it to be much shorter than it turned out.
> 
> I'm afraid next week probably won't be so lucky (I'm not at home, and probably won't have any internet, starting with Friday), but there's always hope …


	8. Gendry 4

Their campfire flickered happily while juice dripped on it from the deer’s meat that hung above. It was a risk, of course, but after they hadn’t seen anyone else since the inn they both felt secure enough to take it. 

Gendry had fastened it on a few crude sticks he’d made from branches found in the forest, while Arya had started the fire. Hot Pie had shown her how to it, he remembered, while scolding himself for not paying attention to how she’d done it. 

Roasted meet, that was something he probably wouldn’t ever get used to; it wasn’t like you got a lot of it when you were a lowborn smith in King’s Landing. Meat, especially venison, that was for the rich, for those of a high enough birth to get into the Red Keep, not for bastards like himself. 

No, he wasn’t used to it, and truth be told, he could barely touch or eat it. That seemed inherently _wrong_ , somehow. 

Though that was only half the reason, if at all. 

_All Seven Hells, does he have to be my father?_

There was still the little chance that Arya might be wrong, of course, not that Gendry would be stupid enough to hope for it. What she’d said made to much sense for that, what with all the odd occurrences around him that had happened over the years. 

No, he wouldn’t touch the meat. 

For a split-second he feared Arya might have taken notice, there was an expression of confusion that crossed her face for the shortest of moments, but than she resumed to eat as if nothing was there. Though she didn’t look much happier than he felt, he saw. 

Not that she looked all too happy, either, but he suspected it was for different reasons. He’d never had a family, but judging by how often he was anxious of what Arya would say to him every day, it really wouldn’t surprise him that she’d be a little worried about what her family would say. 

Sometimes he wondered if that was because of him, if she thought about what they’d say about her bringing him along, though he normally managed to dismiss that line of thinking. Most times, anyways. Arya wasn’t one to lie easily, he’d learnt that much about her, at least, and she’d said it wouldn’t be a problem. 

When the sun had fully set it stayed quiet for a long while; it seemed they both were sunken to deeply in their thoughts to start their usual storytelling. In the end, after some half-hearted tries by both of them, they just gave the rest of the deer’s meat to Nymeria and her wolves who then devoured it frighteningly fast. 

Their fire had long since burnt down when Gendry awoke the next morning, but in the first few rays of sunlight it was still easy to see that nothing had happened. He breathed a sigh of relief; even if he hadn’t really thought that anyone would notice the light of it, it was still reassuring that evidently the lands around them were truly save. 

Standing up, he made sure that the horse was still bound to the tree where they’d fastened it the day before, then waited for Arya to wake up. Normally they’d start at dawn, no matter if on horseback or not, and he didn’t want to end her sleep before he had to. Let her have her sleep; it wasn’t as if they were being chased, after all, so they could take their time. 

Though normally, she’d wake shortly after him. _Stop making that much noise_ , she’d say to him every other day. Grudgingly, he had to admit that he _was_ much louder than Arya was, who, when focused on it, could walk an entire day without making a single sound louder than the one made by stepping on a root. 

Not that she normally did, of course. 

_No, she prefers complaining about how I’m so loud, it wouldn’t matter if she’d step on_ _every leaf on purpose._

Complaining rather loudly, that was. 

Though by now, she was more likely to complain about their horse, since of course none of them walked all the time anymore. 

Finally, Gendry resolved he had to wake her; he couldn’t let her lying on the ground till midday, after all. Her face was turned away from him, with the rest of her comfortably – that was, as comfortably as you could get on a hard earth-resting-place – snuggled on the ground, occasionally slashing out in her sleep, like she always did. 

That wasn’t unusual, Gendry thought, until he turned her head around to try and wake her. Normally that wasn’t hard – Arya was the lightest of sleepers, seemingly always on guard, even when she wasn’t awake – but this time that got no reaction out of her, and he had his hands halfway wrapped around her, to shake her awake, when he saw her eyes, and sprang back as if something’d bitten him. 

_Her eyes_ , he thought, and _what happened? All Seven, what am I supposed to_ _do?_

The eyes. He couldn’t help but stare at them. 

They were white, utterly and completely, as if someone had decided to replace them with white glass marbles. 

_No, that’s not it,_ he corrected himself. They weren’t _entirely_ white. What made them so eerie to look at wasn’t the fact that her pupils were missing, it was that there was still structure in her eyes, that he could still see the fine veins embedded in them. 

It wasn’t as if they’d been replaced, it was as if someone had _turned them around_ , and they were now pointing inwards, into her own skull. 

He tried and failed to suppress a shudder, then again tried and failed to hold himself on a nearby branch, as to not fall over. Finally, he placed himself beside her. 

_What am I supposed to do?_ , he wondered, desperately. 

What were you supposed to do when you woke up to find your only friend in the world somehow eyes that pointed _inwards_? 

After a moment, he realized that normally he’d now ask Arya what to do. 

Only, well … 

At least she still seemed to be asleep, and slept in the same manner she was wont to. He wondered if he’d still be able to wake her up, and what would happen then. How would _she_ react to find her eyes were all wrong? Would it maybe right itself when she woke up? Maybe that had happened before, and she’d know what to do? 

But no, somehow he felt this was new, even for her. He’d stayed awake at night before, after all, and though her eyelid had always been closed, he didn’t think that they’d hid anything unusual. 

Slowly, he felt himself panicking. What if there was nothing to do, and he’d have to carry her to Riverrun? He’d have to leave the horse, of course, he had no idea on how to not fall off without her, he’d have to walk the entire way, but then, it wasn’t like he wasn’t used to walking. What her family would say once he arrived, though … 

Now panic was rushing through him, he could feel it, feel it in every last bit of his body, while he desperately tried to keep it away. 

_What should I do?_

Panicking wouldn’t help him, he knew, and not doing anything wouldn’t, either, but what if he made something wrong? What if he caused Arya to … 

_No_ , he shouted at himself, _don’t think of that. Don’t ever._

Still, he couldn’t help it. 

Finally, after what felt like days, he gently began to hold her again, shook her, slowly, and hoped against hope that everything would be fine. 

While carefully rocking her, trying to keep tears from appearing, because of course they would, because Arya was lying there in his arms and apart from the occasional lashing in her sleep didn’t do _anything at all_ , didn’t move as much as a single muscle, he almost didn’t hear her. 

“Gendry?” 

Her voice was barely audible, yet he heard it, of course he did, how could he not, and when he looked back at his face her eyes were there again, all normal, as if there’d never been anything wrong with them. He hadn’t even seen how that happened, had they slid back in front? Just reappeared? 

He couldn’t begin to guess, and he didn’t care to, either. 

“What happened?” 

For a moment, he was overwhelmed by happiness about the fact that she _hadn’t even_ _noticed_ , there had been nothing wrong with her, after all, of course there hadn’t. Gendry wanted to laugh, wanted to shout out into the world that _she’s alive!_ , but stopped himself to answer her question. 

She had a right to know, after all, what had happened. 

“I – I tried to wake you, but your eyes were all white and strange, and I – I didn’t know what to do, I just – didn’t, but then you woke up, after all, and you’re all right, and –” 

Frankly, he was surprised she understood anything at all, the way the words tumbled out of his mouth in a – for him – completely unusual manner, but then, this wasn’t an everyday occurrence, and yet she somehow did. 

Then her face went pale, and she whispered a single word, but word that still sent shivers down Gendry’s spine. 

“White?” 

He nodded, unable to do anything else, but then she’d already stood up, with a strength he hadn’t known she possessed, and shouted _“Nymeria!”_ out into the woods. 

She was still shaking, later, when she helped him climb on the horse – _Fatigue_ , she’d named it while riding the day before, because she’d said the horse was to tired to go any faster and constantly needed to stop and eat – and for the entire day it felt like she pressed herself closer to him, or maybe tried to get away from him, so he wouldn’t notice. Gendry hadn’t thought that was possible, and yet it somehow was exactly what she did. 

Her wolf took its time to reappear after she’d called for the beast; it was halfway to midday when their horse suddenly broke to run while grassing in one of the rare clearings in the forest and Arya had to keep it back, while Gendry felt for the hundredth time as if he was about to fall off. 

Gendry had hoped it would lighten her mood somewhat, or make the shivering cease, but if anything, it seemed to grow more violent. 

When the sun had reached its peak and turned, and they had to stop yet again – which made Gendry feel a little more secure on the beast – he finally resolved to ask her what was wrong, even though her manner told him she wouldn’t like speaking about it. 

As expected, she glared at him, but only for a moment, and then the paleness returned again, as if she was deathly frightened of something. 

“You can tell me”, he tried to reassure her, “remember that I promised I’d be there for you in case you ever wanted to talk? Besides, you know ’bout me being that fat King’s bastard, I won’t go telling your secrets.” 

He’d meant the last bit to lighten the mood, though he immediately regretted it. If anything, it made it even worse, be it because Arya thought this wasn’t anything to laugh about, or because he’d attempted to make a joke about something he himself wasn’t happy with in the least. 

Still, eventually, she looked at him as directly as she could, sitting in front of him on there mare’s back, and whispered silently, in that same voice she’d used that morning: 

“I think I’m a warg, Gendry.” 

It took him a moment to realize what she was saying; while she had told him stories about wargs while they’d been trading stories, it wasn’t all that long ago that he’d never heard of one, except maybe Lord Bloodraven. 

He was at loss on what to say to that, though. 

How had that idea wormed its way in her head? 

“You know, when I sleep … I’m always dreaming of wolves, I _am_ a wolf while I sleep … and, well, sometimes I see you, and me myself, too, sleeping on the ground.” 

He was about to say that didn’t really mean anything; while strange, it might have just been a coincident without meaning, but she beat him to it. 

“I know that doesn’t make anything real … just, when you woke me and said that … well, in Old Nan’s stories wargs always had eyes without any black in them, and …” 

There was no need for her to end that sentence, Gendry could imagine it easily enough. _What if she’s looking out of Nymeria’s head while asleep?_

For a while they rode in silence, with Gendry almost wondering if that was all, then she said, “In stories, wargs are always bad people, the kind that feast on human flesh.” 

There was fear in her voice, and maybe even disgust; Gendry couldn’t be too sure, he’d never been one to easily pick up other people’s feelings. Still, it was plain as day that she wasn’t happy about it. He wondered if that was how he’d sounded, when she’d deduced that he was that fat king’s son. 

“Arya, I don’t think you’re eating humans behind my back.” 

Jokes and Gendry had never particularly agreed with each other, and though it was meant to not be serious it somehow managed to sound sincere out of his mouth; as if he’d really believe that her eating human flesh was a possibility. 

Gendry had half a mind to curse himself for that. 

“What about other people?”, she asked, her voice a whisper barely loud enough to be heard. 

He just barely stopped himself from retorting _I thought you didn’t care about other_ _people’s rumours?_ , but it really wasn’t the time for that. 

“What if they think me a monster? What if people start to fear me because … because of Nymeria? What … they’ll hate me, I know they will. I don’t really want people to be afraid of me. Are … Are you afraid of me, Gendry?” 

Tough he might not be good at picking up hidden signs in people’s speech, even Gendry noticed that last question was meant to sound firm, like a trivial thing, but came out instead with all the fear Arya didn’t want to show. _She truly is afraid_ , he realized. How strange that was, for him, to see her afraid. Even when they’d defended that cursed holdfast against Lord Amory’s men she hadn’t sounded like she did now; anxious, fearful even, yes; but never quite as shaken. Gendry had become so used to her being a steady point of security on their flight, he hadn’t even noticed it till now. 

Again, he remembered that night when he’d told her of Lord Stark’s visit, and how she’d joked to cheer him up again. He wasn’t great on wit, had never been, but he had no idea what else to try and do. 

So he answered: “How could I not? You’re the one who’s saved my life more than once; anyone stupid enough to do that must be utterly _mad_.” 

As soon as the word left his mouth, he knew it was terrible, before Arya had even had a chance to react, his mind was full of thoughts akin to _Oh dear, there goes another failed_ _joke._

And yet, _somehow_ , he felt Arya soften against him, just a bit; and though he couldn’t see her face at all he desperately hoped it had been enough to get a little grin on her face, even if he severely doubted it. 

“But that’s just you, Gendry. Others _will_ think me a monster, and even … even if I wasn’t in Nymeria every night, I’m still … I’ve killed, Gendry. _Killed_. I know I’ll never be a lady, never be as good as Sansa, but even so … they’d try to make me one, again, they’d never let me out of my chamber again …” 

_You only killed because you had to_ , he wanted to tell her, but felt that it wasn’t the time for that; she had not yet finished speaking, after all. 

“They won’t want me anymore. I’m supposed to be a lady, but I’m not, I tried, I _did_ , truly, but … but I failed, and … mother won’t want me, not as me myself, I’ve got so much blood all over me, I even was the one to kill Lommy, and I can’t ever be what she wants me to, she was always angry with me, same as the Septa - she’s dead now, I suppose, I know she is, and Sansa is still in King’s Landing, and …” 

“We have to go back”, she suddenly interrupted herself, forcefully cutting her own quiet ramblings that Gendry didn’t know how to react to off. Then she drew the reins around, and before he could say a word the horse complied and had turned as well. 

“Arya, why - what are you doing?” 

“I have to get back”, she said, determination now filling her voice, “Sansa is still there; I’ve seen her the day they murdered father. It was never meant to go like it did; Yoren told me afterwards, they’d meant for him to take the black. But Joffrey \- he just killed him anyways. I’ve _seen_ it, Gendry, before Yoren made me look away, I’ve seen them all shouting - Varys, even the Queen - have seen them all shouting at Joffrey, because no one had wanted to kill him. It was only Joffrey. _Joffrey!_ ” 

Arya worked herself further into her rage; she started to shout. 

“Just Joffrey. _I’ll kill him!_ I’ll go back there and kill him, and his mother, and maybe even his land-burning grandfather if he’s there, and then I’ll get Sansa out - ” 

“ _Arya!_ ”, he shouted at her, but it was no use. 

“ _No!_ I’ll go back there, and you are _not_ going to stop me, Gendry!” 

With a start, he realized she slowed down. Soon they stood still beside the river, with him wondering as to _why_. 

“Get off, Gendry. I know you don’t want to come with me, I understand that, so _get off_. I’d give you the horse and ride Nymeria, but you don’t know how to even stay _on_ it anyways. Just go on to Riverrun, the man at the inn said Edmure’s taking in refugees, and - ” 

“No.” 

Gendry was surprised how sure he sounded; how sure he’d cut her off, but found that he _was_ determined enough to stop her. 

“Arya”, he started, desperately trying to talk sense in her, “Do you really want to go back? After all this endless travelling, when you’re almost there, just to kill that mad shit?” 

“I’m going back to save Sansa.” 

“After almost getting _killed_ more than once, when your family thinks that you’re either captive or maybe _dead_ , you don’t even want to assure them you’re still alive?” 

For a moment she was still, then she seemed to break in his arms. She didn’t cry, not a single tear was running down her cheeks, but suddenly she seemed to be needing his support to stay on the horse, not like before. 

Gendry tried to hug her as best as it was possible on the horse, when he’d already had his arms around her. Still, Arya seemed to notice, and leaned back against him, almost seemed to cave in against him. 

“Gendry? I don’t know what to do.” 

He’d thought it all but impossible for her voice to grow even weaker than before, and yet it was, now. 

Though Gendry thought the answer obvious, he still took time to think about it again before answering her. Maybe it was that tone of her voice that made it, or that she’d never admitted to _not_ knowing what to do, or maybe that he sensed that she _truly_ had absolutely no idea on how to proceed. 

“Go to your family, I’d say”, he answered her then, “you’re almost there; at least let them know you live. You can always turn back later. You managed to escape King’s Landing, remember? If you want to, I’m sure you’ll get out of Riverrun again, even if you’re not allowed to.” 

“You sure?” 

“I’ll help you.” 

“Promise me?” 

For a moment he wondered if he should back down; with Arya, there was no telling what he might get himself into. 

“I promise.” 

To his relief, Arya started the horse towards Riverrun. 

A few miles down the road, when he was finally sure Arya wouldn’t reconsider, he told her: “Arya, remember what you said about me being a bastard, and the king’s bastard at that? Even if you truly are a warg, you’re still the same Arya, everyone who thinks different is just wrong.” 

He couldn’t see her face, of course, but still thought she smiled at that. 

Miraculously, they spied Riverrun not two hours later, sitting proudly right in the middle of the river, with red-and-blue banners displayed, and the gray direwolf of Stark flying above it. And when the outriders spied them and asked them who they were, Arya was back to her usual self again, to Gendry’s relief. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. It's true I was a week away from home without a keyboard to write upon, but it still took me longer than anticipated.
> 
> I really hope you've enjoyed this chapter, because I certainly haven't. I rewrote it far to often to remember every iteration, and I'm absolutely not satisfied with how it turned out, and feel like it is a pile of old ides shimmering just beneath the surface, like a particularly muddy lake where you can't see your own legs in the water (the campfire, for example, was originally meant for Arya to use as a "proof" of her own "beastiness"; no one would be able to just start a fire in an active war zone without Nymeria and her wolves protecting them). It was also meant as an Arya chapter -- in fact, I have quite a lot of her internal dialog thought out and written -- but I wanted to have that parallel with them, where both discover something about the other and then reassure the other that it's fine, with Gendry being a royal bastard and Arya being a warg.
> 
> Also, I gave their horse a name. Originally I wanted to call it _Spinster_ \-- as a metaphor for Arya's desire not to be a traditional lady, but also, since a spinster is seen as staying at home, to express her deep desire to go back to her family -- but in the end I found it didn't really fit her, because she also wants to go out and see the world. I settled on _Fatigue_ mostly because of that tiredness, she wants to go home, and then stay there for quite some time -- she certainly doesn't wish to return into the war anytime soon -- but also because however tired you are, eventually, once you've rested enough and dealt with all the problems, you're awake again, and Arya, as I've said before, _does_ want to go out, see the Wall and visit Jon, maybe go to Dorne and have a good long look at its culture and Nymeria's legacy.
> 
> Actually, there's a theory which I quite like, namely the one that she will, after Dany goes down against the Others, pick up her anti-slavery crusade and bring it to an end. I think that would be a nice ending for her: she gets the adventures she's wanted as a child, and she fights the social injustice she's struggled with all her life (PoorQuentyn, whom I've mentioned in my [_A Collection of useful links for writing fanfiction_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7851712), even refers to her as _Asoiaf's Batman_ ).
> 
> Oh, and in case my writing style has kind of changed since the last chapter: It's been a while, and I'm currently reading Robert Jordan's _The Wheel of Time_. Don't know whether or not it's noticeable, but I know from experience that it sometimes is. When I started reading Lovecraft, suddenly my drafts and works were full of archaic terms that nobody in there right mind would ever use (allow me to point out my _[Sherun, or, an Adventurer's life](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7237423)_ , which shifts into a Lovecraftian horror story halfway through, which was only partly intentional on my part).
> 
> Oh, I nearly forgot: it might just be this is the last regular chapter of this particular fic (though there'll probably be an epilogue). That doesn't mean this ends here and now, though. Notice it's part of a series? I just feel that this chapter of their story has ended here; now they're at Riverrun, and something new begins (I've already got it plotted out, actually).
> 
> Thoughts? On the chapter? On my ramblings here? Or just anything else that comes to mind?


	9. Epilogue

The baker’s boy made some bread. Nice, good bread, not like the tough chewy one they’d had here before he’d showed up. That had been a few days ago, three or four, maybe. It wasn’t like he counted; he was just glad to finally be somewhere with a decent oven again; and with people to _talk_ to, with whom you could be sure that their pets wouldn’t just decide you’d make for a nice midday meal. 

It was nice, he thought, to be in a warm kitchen again, with some bread to break his fast on, and a bed to sleep in. 

He tried to remember when he’d last had one, before. It must’ve been when his mother had still been alive, years ago, before he’d lived on the streets. _She taught me how to bake_ _pies_ , he remembered, _and what lovely hot pies they were._

He wished he could make some, good, warm and crunchy venison pie, but that wasn’t possible, of course. The innkeep, Joseth, didn’t exactly have much meat to spare – what Gendry and Arry had left he’d saved for guests. 

“First rule of runnin’ an inn”, he’d said to him on his first day, “whenever possible, have meat for the guests. Or have you ever seen a noblemen who likes to go without it? I haven’t, and I’ve run this inn for forty years.” 

So they’d covered as much of it in salt as they could – but salt was prized, and of course it hadn’t been enough. Not long afterwards they’d cooked what was left, enough for a feast – “Well, if we can’t help it, it can’t be helped”, Meg, Joseth’s wife had said, “I’m certainly not complaining.” 

And though he himself had had his doubts – that meat _had_ been caught by a giant monster, after all – he’d had to admit that the meat _was_ lovely, the few bits he’d tried. 

But then, as if someone had noticed the smell a band of outlaws had come running in – Lord Beric, their leader had called himself, he remembered, though he doubted that the man had ever truly been one – and before any of them had even realized what was going on they’d taken almost all of it and were gone again, only leaving dirt in the common room, together with a piece of parchment, with some lines of writing on it. Neither Joseth nor his wife could read, however, and he couldn’t, either, so it wasn’t like it had done them much good. 

Joseth had been furious, of course – though at least they hadn’t discovered the salted meat they’d stored in the little room behind the kitchen – but the boy had secretly been almost glad of its disappearance. 

There was something about the meat Arry provided that made him uneasy, even when he’d caught it herself, not with that terrible beast; there was a sense of _wrongness_ around him. Arry must’ve been years younger than the boy himself, and he’d noticed that even Gendry was wary of getting closer to that monster than necessary, no matter if he was twice as tall as Arry or not. 

_It’s not like I’m easily afraid_ , he told himself, _I’ve lived in the streets of King’s Landing_ _half my life, and I never was too frightened then._

But with Arry … it wasn’t just the beast; even before that, he’d been the only one who could hunt, had been able to beat _him_ bloody to the point that he couldn’t walk for _days_ without much visible effort. He wasn’t even afraid of sparring with the Bull, and worse, he supposed it wouldn’t even be too surprising if Arry would’ve actually won such a match. 

_And he killed Lommy._

If anything, he thought, that was it what had truly terrified him. 

These last two days Lommy had still been alive … they’d had to carry him, of course, and his back had hurt as if it’d been roasted in one of the pot shops, but still. He had been _alive_ , even if he’d begged for death. 

He’d been so certain that in a couple of days, Lommy would be all right again … 

If only they’d made it to this inn with him still alive, maybe … 

But of course Arry just _had_ to kill him. As if he didn’t care at all. One morning, he’d woken up to find his friend dead, and a pool filled with his life’s blood beside him. 

Who _wouldn’t be_ terrified of that _creature_? Every night after that, he’d feared it might have been the last time for him to close his eyes, had wished he could just run away, but of course he couldn’t. Arry might kill him any time without him ever being warned, but he was also the only one between him and certain death from hunger. 

With a start, he realized that his dough was now as hard as a piece of old, dry meat. 

_You’re thinking too much_ , he told himself, _thinking about these two won’t do you any_ _good._

Trying to distract himself, he added the appropriate amount of water, and started kneading it again. There was an art to it, he’d learnt that long ago. People always thought that surely making bread must be simple, and in theory, it was: Just take some water, add some flour, mix everything together and put it in an oven. 

Most people never just realized just how wrong they were. 

So he continued, hoping beyond hope he hadn’t done something wrong. He hadn’t made any bread in a while, after all, nor for a long time. There was a reason others called him _Hot Pie_ , and it wasn’t that he was known for making bread. Still, while it might not be his best attempt at it, he supposed it should be more than simply edible. 

Making bread. _That_ was what he knew, not how to fight or how to live in the wild for _ages_. At first, it had seemed so simple as well – he remembered thinking that in Yoren’s camp, that all you had to do was to appoint a guard and have someone to hunt – but as with making bread there were a hundred little things you could do wrong. 

_Only with baking, you’ll never wake up to find your friend’s been murdered._

He tried to avoid it, _really_ tried, but before long his thoughts drifted again, and he found himself wondering what had happened to them. To Arry and the Bull. He hadn’t liked either of them, but he supposed it was always hard to get people out of your head once you’d travelled with them for close to a fortnight. 

Then he realized what he was doing, and cut that train of thought off short. 

_Thinking about them will do you no good_ , he reminded himself again. Once, he’d had a dream of becoming a knight, a long time ago. And while he’d of course learnt that he couldn’t ever be one, he’d liked to imagine that being at the Wall was something similar; in a way, he’d defend the weak, like any good knight should, even if it was just by cooking for his brothers. Thinking back, he wondered if Gendry or Arry had ever had any intention of actually joining the Watch. 

_Maybe the Bull_. He had no such hopes about Arry, though. 

But then, not a fortnight after they’d set out from King’s Landing, Yoren had died, Lommy had first been wounded and then died, after Cutjack and Tarber had left. Then of course there’d been the Goldcloaks wanting the Bull, and Lumpyhead turning out to be more beast than boy. 

_Maybe_ , he supposed, _it should have been a warning that he thought they were after_ _him. He must’ve done something before, in the city, and was forced to flee, like a_ _criminal._

No, not _like_ a criminal. He _was_ a criminal, there was no doubting that. 

The dough was almost ready by now, and he shaped it into a nice loaf of bread and just wanted to search for some firewood when he heard the shouting. 

_Guests? Now?_

It was just mod-morning; in King’s Landing it was seldom for an inn to have any costumers before at least noon. But then again, he himself hadn’t exactly arrived at anything like a normal time, either. 

_Anyways, it’s not my job to deal with guests._

That was an innkeep’s task, not a baker’s. 

While he continued his work, slowly, there were voices floating through the door, low at first, then gradually rising louder and louder until it was the heat of an argument that reached his ears, terrible shouting that stroke fear in him, though he couldn’t really tell why, or even really think about it. 

Finally, the spell was broken when he heard something falling to the floor, a _flapping_ sound, not like the one a loaf of bread or a plate would make. With a start he recognized it; it was the peculiar, singular sound made by a body falling on the ground. He’d heard it before, after all, in King’s Landing and when Yoren had been killed. 

In a moment of deafening silence, he realized that someone must’ve slit Joseth’s throat. Only a moment later he could hear Meg crying out, while he frantically searched for a place to hide. 

_The storeroom, with the meat, maybe?_

No, surely not, whoever this was, he was bound to open it sooner or later. No one killed an innkeep without having a look at his kitchen. 

Shaking and shuddering, his eyes fell on the oven, right beside the door, with a small space behind it, not visible for someone stumbling in unless he knew where to look for it. There was already a fire lit inside of it for the bread he’d been making, and its backside was hot enough to fry an egg, but he didn’t really care. 

While Meg’s scream grew lower and slowly died, he crawled into his new-found hiding-place, desperately trying not to make a single sound. 

_No, wait!_ , he wanted to cry out at the world, _this isn’t how it’s supposed to be! That’s all_ _wrong, it should’ve been safer here!_

With a remarkable effort, he just barely managed not to scream out in terror when the man came through the doorway. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now this was a tough one to write. There's so little we know about Hot Pie, it almost felt like I was creating a original character.
> 
> I could use this as an excuse for the delay, I guess, but that wouldn't be true. Sorry. I do hope I'll find time to do regular updates in the future, though, but of course I can't promise anything, what with me moving across half the country …
> 
> Anyways, a week ago I _did_ release the story about [Arya and a dinosaur](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8037334), so I guess I could say that at least I didn't write _nothing_.
> 
> (Also, I spent way too much time watching _Vikings_ , which I had never expected to happen. I guess it's part guilty pleasure at seeing all the things that are just so obviously _wrong_ when you know anything about history, and part actual enjoyment with the surprisingly good story. In any case, it's better than _Game of Thrones_ , which still says quite a lot -- actually, now that I've got a [tumblr blog](https://gazyrlezon.tumblr.com/), maybe I should write something about that …)
> 
> So, if you're still reading this, I hope you enjoyed it, and rest assured: I won't end the story here (I could never end one with a GRRM-style epilogue, now, could I?), but I feel that this is an end of sorts, and what comes next is a new part in Arya's and Gendry's journey. Also, they're already friends now, which makes the title a bit pointless for anything that comes after this …


End file.
